Definition
A Latin verb meaning "to say," "to speak," or "to pronounce." In old English legal usage, *dicere* referred specifically to the formal act of delivering or pronouncing a verdict—the moment at which a jury spoke its finding aloud before the court. The noun form, *dictum*, derives directly from this root and carries its own distinct legal meaning.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): *Dicere* has no meaningful modern English common usage; it is a Latin infinitive occasionally encountered in academic or ecclesiastical contexts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Not entered as a standalone English word.
Editorial note: Because *dicere* is pure Latin legal vocabulary with no parallel life in ordinary English, the term is best understood entirely through its legal and procedural context in medieval English law. The relevant gap is not between legal and lay usage, but between its original procedural specificity and the later diffusion of its derivative *dictum* into broader legal discourse.
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Common Confusion
*Dicere* is occasionally conflated with its nominal derivative *dictum* or with the related phrase *obiter dictum*. These are not synonymous. *Dicere* is the act—the speaking or pronouncing—while *dictum* is the thing spoken: a statement, finding, or judicial observation. A jury *dicere*s; what they produce is a *dictum* (verdict). Judicial *dicta* in the modern sense of non-binding observations belong to a much later evolution of the root and have no direct procedural connection to the jury-verdict sense of *dicere*.
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Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working in medieval English legal sources—particularly Bracton and early plea rolls—will encounter *dicere* and its conjugated forms (*dixerint*, *dixerunt*) in formulaic descriptions of jury proceedings. The phrase *veredictum suum dixerint* ("when they shall have pronounced their verdict") is a standard construction in thirteenth-century Latin legal records and signals the moment of formal jury delivery, not mere deliberation.
The critical navigational point: *dicere* in these sources is a term of procedural art, not casual speech. When Bracton uses the phrase *dicere veritatem* or *verum dicere*, he is invoking the formal oath-bound truth-speaking function of the jury, connecting the procedural act of verdict delivery to the juror's obligation under oath. Researchers tracing the history of the jury's truth-telling function—and how that obligation shaped early verdict doctrine—should treat every appearance of *dicere* and its forms as a primary data point, not mere Latin filler.
For corpus researchers: *dicere* appears almost exclusively in Latin-language sources. Once legal writing shifted to English and Law French, the term disappears from the surface of the record, but its conceptual weight migrated into *verdict* (from Old French *veirdit*, itself from Latin *vere dictum*, "truly said"). Understanding *dicere* is therefore essential background for tracing the etymology and early procedural meaning of VERDICT in the Law Mind corpus.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Burrill's Law Dictionary provides the foundational entry, correctly identifying *dicere* as an old English law term for pronouncing a verdict and citing Bracton folio 292 for both *dicere veritatem* and the formulaic *et cum xxiiii veredictum suum dixerint*. Burrill cross-references DICTUM without elaboration, leaving the researcher to follow that chain independently.
What Burrill does not address: the deeper connection between *dicere* and the juror's oath structure, or the way *vere dicere* ("to speak truly") became embedded in the word *verdict* itself. The entry treats *dicere* as a narrow procedural label rather than a concept with jurisprudential weight. Researchers should supplement Burrill with direct consultation of Bracton's *De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae* for the full context of jury-truth-speaking in thirteenth-century procedure.
No other source dictionaries in the current Law Mind shelf enter *dicere* independently; the term's treatment is thin across historical legal lexicography generally, reflecting its status as a working Latin term of art rather than a contested doctrinal concept.
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Jurisdictional Note
*Dicere* in its legal sense belongs exclusively to the medieval English common law tradition and to civilian and ecclesiastical Latin sources of the same period. It has no operative meaning in modern Anglo-American jurisdictions and does not appear in contemporary statutes or judicial opinions except in historical quotation.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: VERDICT (for the procedural and historical development of jury findings); JURY (for the structure and oath obligations of early English juries).
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