lawyer

The sustained popularity of this Legal dictionary since its appearance (like Bouvier?s Law Dictionary in the XIX Century) it was attributed to the scholarship and Learning of Henry Campbell Black, and to the plan adopted by him for the compilation of a legal lexicon. Now the editor is Bryan Garner, a lexicographer.

Black s is the last standing comprehensive American Legal dictionary  intended for a wide audience. Unlike Bouvier s and Ballantine s, which have not been updated in decades, Black s is supported by the West/Thomson legal publishing behemoth and benefits from the resources that publisher provides. The dictionary has been translated into (of all languages) Urdu.(89. Qanuni, Angrezi- Urdu lughat: Blaiks la dikshanari se makhuz (2002) (published by Islamabad: Muqtadirah-yi Qaumi Zaban).

Some authors recommend the fourth edition of Black’s because the fifth edition leans away

from Common law toward Equity Law.”

Henry Campbell Black wrote that The first canon of lexicography relates to substance: A dictionary

must be comprehensive; the second, to form: A dictionary must be convenient. (5 HARV. L. REv. 155, 155 (reviewing BLACK S LAW DICTIONARY (1st ed. 1891)).

A reviewer noted in 1910 that [t]he task of the compiler of a law dictionary becomes more difficult in

geometric progression year by year, as the scope, aim and study of the law are broadened to include the rapidly-increasing bulk of human knowledge; for the law reaches out and bodily assimilates many of the sciences akin to it.(Clement R. Wood, Book Note, 20 YALE L.J. 423 (1911))

In the Preface to the 4th Edition, it was addressed the usefulness of the legal dictionary to the law student, confronted in his casebooks with reports from The Year Books. or with extracts

[The eighth edition] continues the effort begun with the seventh edition: to raise the level of scholarship through serious research and careful reassessment. . The eighth edition contains definitions of over 40,000 terms, an increase of 17,000 terms over the seventh edition.

If words have a useful life, then so do dictionaries. Black s began in 1891; its full title reminds us of a proud parent, christening his first-born-A Dictionary of Law Containing Definitions of the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and Modem Including the Principal Terms of International, Constitutional, and Commercial law ; with a Collection of Legal Maxims and

Numerous Select Titles from the Civil Law and Other Foreign Systems.

The full title of the second edition (repeated, with only slight variations, in the third) attests

to youthful exuberance-as new and exciting features are recalled, they burst forth A Law Dictionary: Containing definitions of the terms and phrases of American and English jurisprudence, ancient and modem. And including the principal terms of international, constitutional, ecclesiastical, and Commercial law. and medical jurisprudence, with a collection of legal maxims, numerous select titles

from the roman, modem civil, scotch, French, Spanish and Mexican law, and other foreign systems, and a table of abbreviations.

By its fourth edition, the work had achieved a certain maturity; the titles to the

fourth, fifth, and sixth editions no longer include the litany of contents, but there is

still the need to describe what the work is-Black s Law Dictionary: Definitions of

the Terms and Phrases of American and English Jurisprudence, Ancient and

Modem.

By the seventh edition, any description on the title page has become

superfluous; having established itself and being in its prime, the dictionary, in its