Dictionaries/Glossaries

 

English/English legal online

Be sure you know these words of BASIC legal vocabulary

Duhaime's Law Dictionary

basic legal terms for first year law students at Harvard

Jurist's law dictionary

glossary accompaning Introduction to the English Legal System, OUP

UK Law Dictionary from 6th form law site

glossary from the Judiciary of England and Wales site

 

English/French legal online

Juriterm - bilingual Canadian dictionary (doesn't work with Safari - try Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape)

Granddictionaire Canadian dictionary of terminology, including law)

translation and drafting aids of the European Union, legal plus other subjects - try the IATE link on the right)

 

Dictionaries - paper

Les bases du droit anglais , Bouscaren and Greenstein, is a very general presentation of English law with translations or explanations of important terms

Dictionnaire de l'anglais économique et juridique et du commerce international, Anne Deysine et al. If you can't stop yourself from buying a dictionary, this one, while not perfect, is good value for money.

Dictionnaire juridique français-anglais / anglais-français (Harraps/Dalloz) This very recent dictionary might be good for English law, but needs improvement on the American side.

Lexique de l'anglais juridique : Français/anglais anglais/français, Kettler. Another recent arrival, rather expensive. You need to familiarise yourself with the abreviations to get all the information about the words.

Dictionnaire des difficultés de l'anglais des contrats. Houbert

Guide pratique de la traduction juridique : français/anglais. Houbert

 

Dictionaries - "Do-it-yourself" Not only is the end result better, but your "doing" will help you remember. You can use :

The English translations of the French codes from the Legifrance site or French cases translated into English

French constitutional council - texts and case law

Le greffe du tribunal de commerce de Paris has an English version of their site as does Notaires de France.

Another trick, for European law- use the Europa site. Find the page in French (or your language) concerning the subject you are interested in, then change two letters in the URL

for instance, if you started with

http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/index_fr.htm

just change the "fr" to "en"

http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/index_en.htm

 

Specialised legal dictionaries online - English, but with French equivalents when possible

conflicts of law, by Prof. Wm Tetley

maritime law, by Prof. Wm Tetley

 

A collection of various specialised bilingual legal dictionaries online

 

General English dictionaries online

Cambridge dictionaries (with some online language activities)

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English

Merriam-Webster learner's dictionary or their regular dictionary (with sound)

 

Google as a definition finder

In a google window, type

define: (word or phrase you are looking for)

If using a phrase, use parentheses, e.g. "habeas corpus"

-> define: "habeas corpus"

updated 26/01/10