dictum
C1CEFR level
78/100Rarity: rare
FormalRegister
General noun
A formal or authoritative pronouncement, or a widely accepted saying laying down a principle.
He lived by the old dictum that one should never argue with a person who buys ink by the barrel.
Law noun
A judge's incidental remark that is not essential to the decision and carries no binding authority.
The observation was mere dictum and did not bind the courts that followed.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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