Definition
To adjudge is to make a formal judicial determination: to decide, settle, decree, or condemn by the exercise of judicial authority. The term carries two overlapping senses in legal usage.
1. Judicial decision or decree. A court adjudges a matter when it passes upon it with binding legal effect — resolving a dispute, awarding relief, or imposing a sentence. In this sense, adjudge is essentially synonymous with adjudicate, but with a stronger emphasis on the finality or formal pronouncement of the result.
2. Legislative or statutory declaration. Adjudge is also used in statutes and legislative instruments to declare a legal status or characterization without any accompanying judicial proceeding. A legislature that enacts that "all lotteries are hereby adjudged to be common nuisances" is not directing courts to hold trials — it is imposing a legal classification by fiat. In this second sense the word implies declaration, not adjudication.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To declare to be; to deem or determine; to award judicially; to sentence or condemn.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To award judicially in the case of a controverted question; to determine in the exercise of judicial power; to sentence or condemn; also, to regard or hold — to judge or deem.
The common and legal meanings overlap substantially, but the gap worth noting is this: in ordinary English, "adjudge" often carries the looser sense of forming a personal opinion or judgment ("she adjudged him untrustworthy"). In legal usage, the word is almost always tied either to a formal court proceeding or to an authoritative legal declaration — personal opinion plays no role. Researchers reading historical statutes or opinions should resist importing the softer common meaning into legal texts.
Common Confusion
ADJUDGE vs. ADJUDICATE. The terms are near-synonyms, and the historical dictionaries use each to define the other. The practical distinction, where one exists, is register and emphasis: adjudicate tends to emphasize the process of formal judicial resolution, while adjudge tends to emphasize the act of pronouncing or declaring the outcome. In statutory drafting, adjudge also covers non-judicial legislative declarations (see Definition §2 above), a usage that adjudicate does not share.
ADJUDGE vs. DEEM. Anderson's Dictionary of Law explicitly cross-references DEEM, and the comparison is instructive. Both words can operate to impose a legal characterization, but deem is the broader legislative workhorse — frequently used to create legal fictions. Adjudge in statutes implies something closer to a formal legal finding, even if no court is involved. The two should not be treated as interchangeable when construing older legislative texts.
Why It Matters in Research
The dual meaning of adjudge — judicial decision versus legislative declaration — is the central research trap. A statute using "adjudged" does not necessarily signal that a court proceeding is required or has occurred; it may simply be the legislature imposing a classification. Conversely, in case law, "adjudged" almost always signals a court's formal pronouncement. Misreading the context can distort the meaning of both historical statutes and older opinions that quote or incorporate statutory language.
In historical sources, adjudge appears with high frequency in older equity and admiralty opinions, where courts formally "adjudged and decreed" relief in a single pronouncement. Researchers working in those bodies of law will encounter the term as a near-formulaic phrase rather than a term of art requiring interpretation.
The term also surfaces in criminal contexts — "adjudged guilty," "adjudged and sentenced" — where it marks the moment of formal conviction rather than the finding of fact by a jury. That distinction can matter when researching the legal consequences that attach to conviction (collateral consequences, disqualifications) versus mere verdict.
Jurisdictional variation in the use of adjudge versus adjudicate in modern court rules and statutes is largely a matter of drafting convention rather than substantive difference, but researchers comparing rules across jurisdictions should not assume the terms are always interchangeable in context.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources are in substantial agreement on the core meaning. Black's (both editions) defines adjudge as "to pass upon judicially; to decide, settle, or decree; to sentence or condemn" — a definition focused on the judicial act. Bouvier and Anderson converge on the same primary definition but add the important qualification that adjudge can also mean "to declare or deem" without implying any judgment of a judicial tribunal, citing the lottery-nuisance statute example. This dual usage is the most significant analytical contribution of the historical dictionaries, and it is underweighted in Black's.
What the historical sources largely miss is any sustained treatment of the word's interaction with statutory construction. The legislative-declaration usage they flag in passing is, in practice, one of the more consequential interpretive questions the term raises, and none of the dictionary entries develop it beyond the single example. Researchers should not rely on the historical entries alone when the question is whether a statute using "adjudged" requires or presupposes a judicial proceeding.
Jurisdictional Note
Modern federal usage tends to favor "adjudicated" in procedural rules and statutes, while "adjudged" appears more frequently in older state codes and common-law opinions. Some state juvenile and family law statutes use "adjudged" as a term of art to describe the formal finding that a child falls within a particular court's jurisdiction — a usage with specific procedural consequences that varies by state.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Judgments and Judicial Decisions
Law Mind Encyclopedia — Statutory Construction and Legislative Declarations