Words / P / Law

premeditate

verb/priːˈmedɪteɪt/

B1CEFR level
32/100Rarity: fairly common
TechnicalRegister

To plan or think out a crime beforehand.

The prosecution argued that he had premeditated the killing for weeks, buying the weapon in advance.

Similar: plan, plot

Topic: Criminal law in Legal English

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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More law words: Criminal law