Definition
Award operates both as a verb and a noun, and the legal significance of each usage is distinct.
1. As a noun: The decision, judgment, or determination made by an arbitrator, arbitrators, a board of referees, or an umpire with respect to a matter submitted to them for resolution. The award is the culminating act of the arbitral process — the functional equivalent of a court's judgment. It may also refer to the written instrument that embodies and memorializes that determination. In broader usage, courts and administrative bodies are said to "make an award" of damages, costs, fees, or other relief, extending the noun's meaning to any formal judicial or quasi-judicial grant of a remedy.
2. As a verb: To give, assign, or adjudge something by judicial or quasi-judicial determination. A court awards a writ; a jury awards damages; arbitrators award a sum to the prevailing party. The verb carries the sense of deliberate, authoritative allocation — not a gift but a considered determination of what is due.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A trophy, medal, prize, or honor bestowed in recognition of accomplishment or merit, especially in a competition; also, funding granted for research.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To give by sentence or judicial determination; to assign or apportion after careful regard to the nature of the case; to adjudge.
The gap matters here. In ordinary usage, "award" has drifted toward recognition and reward — trophies, grants, prizes — with no adversarial or adjudicatory connotation. In legal usage, an award is never merely honorary: it is the product of a formal process, carries binding effect, and is subject to confirmation, challenge, or enforcement. A researcher who encounters "award" in a legal instrument should not read it through the lens of the prize-giving sense. The tax treatment of "awards" — a live research area — sits exactly at this intersection, since prizes and competition winnings may be "awards" in the common sense while triggering legal consequences under the legal sense.
Common Confusion
Award and judgment are sometimes used interchangeably, but the distinction is institutionally important. A judgment is the product of a court of law. An award is the product of an arbitrator, referee, umpire, or similar non-judicial decision-maker. The two are governed by different procedural regimes: awards typically require confirmation by a court before they can be enforced as judgments, and grounds for vacating an award are narrower than grounds for appealing a judgment. Researchers should be precise: historical sources sometimes use "award" loosely to describe any authoritative determination, including judicial ones, but modern practice has sharpened the line.
Core Elements
For an arbitral award to be valid and enforceable, historical authorities and continuing doctrine converge on the following requirements:
Submission: The award must resolve only matters actually submitted to the arbitrators. An award that exceeds the scope of the submission has historically been treated as void in whole or in part.
Finality: The award must be final and definite as to all matters submitted. It cannot leave issues unresolved or impose obligations that are uncertain in amount or nature.
Possibility of performance: The award must direct something that can lawfully be done. Bouvier notes the award is void if it directs payment at a past date, commission of a trespass, or any act contrary to law.
Notice and delivery: The award generally must be communicated to the parties. The written instrument embodying the decision is itself part of the legal formality.
Mutual obligation: Where the submission covers claims by multiple parties, the award should address all of them, or at minimum make clear that unaddressed claims were resolved by the determination made.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Final award: Resolves all submitted matters, ending the arbitral proceeding.
Interim or partial award: Resolves discrete issues within a larger arbitration, often used to streamline complex proceedings. Whether such awards are immediately enforceable varies by jurisdiction and governing rules.
Consent award: Issued by arbitrators at the parties' direction to memorialize a settlement reached during arbitration. Has the form and binding force of an arbitral award.
Default award: Issued where one party fails to participate after proper notice. Subject to heightened scrutiny on enforcement.
Why It Matters in Research
The word "award" is a precision instrument that researchers should not treat as interchangeable with "judgment," "verdict," "order," or "decree." When working in the Law Mind corpus, keep the following in mind:
Arbitration context is primary for the noun form. Most substantive legal doctrine around "award" — formation, validity, confirmation, vacation — arises in the arbitration context. Research involving arbitral awards should connect to both procedural materials (governing arbitration statutes, institutional rules) and the confirmation/enforcement track in court.
Historical sources are thinner on procedural refinement. Burrill and Bouvier treat the award primarily as an arbitration concept and say little about administrative or regulatory awards, which became a major category only in the twentieth century. Researchers tracing the modern administrative award (workers' compensation, agency adjudications, regulatory proceedings) will find limited guidance in the historical dictionaries and must look to statutory and regulatory sources.
Tax consequences attach to the label. Whether something is an "award" in the recognition sense — a prize, a trophy, a research grant — has direct tax consequences that turn on the nature and source of the payment, not merely what it is called. The Tax Encyclopedia entry on prizes and awards is the right starting point for that strand.
Spousal support and damages contexts. Courts routinely describe the grant of alimony, spousal support, and damages as an "award." In family law research, the award of support is a term of art that triggers modification and enforcement doctrines distinct from those governing contractual or arbitral awards.
Traps in historical sources. Pre-twentieth-century materials sometimes use "award" to describe any binding judicial determination, not just arbitral ones. Context — specifically, whether the decision-maker is a court or an arbitrator — is the key to accurate reading.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are broadly consistent on the core definition. Burrill provides the most analytical treatment, tracing the word to Latin and Law French roots (awarda, awardum; agard) and grounding the concept in the notion of something imposed on the parties to be observed and kept — an observation that captures the binding, obligatory character of the award and distinguishes it from a mere recommendation. Burrill cites Blackstone's Commentaries for the definition as "the judgment or decision made and given by an arbitrator or arbitrators, or an umpire, respecting any matter in dispute submitted to them."
Anderson's Dictionary of Law is notable for explicitly preserving both the verb and noun senses, and for extending the noun to cover findings of referees and similar quasi-arbitral decision-makers — a useful reminder that the concept was never limited to private commercial arbitration.
Bouvier's treatment is practical and focuses on the validity requirements: the award must be possible to perform, must not exceed the submission, and must not direct anything contrary to law. The note that an award directing payment at a past date is void reflects a formalism that has softened in modern practice, but the underlying principle — that an award must be capable of compliance — persists.
What the historical dictionaries miss: they do not address the confirmation and vacatur framework that now governs arbitral awards under modern arbitration statutes, and they have nothing to say about administrative awards, regulatory proceedings, or the tax treatment of awards as income.
Jurisdictional Note
The procedural law governing arbitral awards — grounds for confirmation, vacatur, and modification — is governed in the United States primarily by the Federal Arbitration Act for arbitrations within its scope and by state arbitration statutes (most modeled on the Uniform Arbitration Act or Revised Uniform Arbitration Act) for others. International arbitral awards are governed by the New York Convention and implementing legislation. Researchers should determine the governing framework before assuming procedural rules are uniform.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Remedies & Equity Encyclopedia: Prejudgment Interest — Availability, Rate, and Discretionary vs. Mandatory Award
The Law Mind Family Law Encyclopedia: Spousal Support — Factors for Award (Need, Ability to Pay, Duration of Marriage)
The Law Mind Tax Encyclopedia: Gross Income — Prizes, Awards, and Contest Winnings