courtroom
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Pronunciation
Etymology
It is a compound from English court + room.[2][3][4]
Earliest recorded meaning
A room next to a courtyard: 1659, in Samuel Lee's Orbis Miraculum; this sense is obsolete.[2][5]
Semantic evolution
The first recorded use took court in its sense of an enclosed yard.[2][5] The current sense, a room in which a court of law sits, is first found in 1677 in the records of the court of New Castle on Delaware,[2] the date Merriam-Webster gives;[6] Etymonline and Dictionary.com date it to the 1670s.[3][4]
Timeline
- 1659 – a room adjoining a courtyard (obsolete).[2][5]
- 1677 – a room in which a court of law meets.[2][6]
Meanings
Noun
- A room in which a court of law sits and cases are heard: Reporters crowded into the courtroom for the verdict.[7][6][8]
- The part of a courthouse in which trials and hearings take place.[9]
Related words
References
- ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
- ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
- ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
- ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
- ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
- ^ Garner, Bryan A., ed. (2004), Black's Law Dictionary, 8th ed., St. Paul, Minn.: Thomson West