Subject Guides: Law: Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias

Dictionaries & Encyclopaedias

Why use them?

Dictionaries and encyclopaedias are great to use to start your research

You can:

Define your topic using subject dictionaries

Find background information in encyclopaedias

Identify other keywords and alternative terms for database searching

Dictionaries

A selection of online dictionaries from Australia, Canada and the United States are linked below, but search the library catalogue to find many more print legal dictionaries from a variety of jurisdictions.

Black's Law Dictionary (United States)
Black's Law Dictionary, 10th ed. 2014
Available via Thomson Reuters Westlaw
Butterworths Australian Legal Dictionary
Electronic title known as Encyclopaedic Australian Legal Dictionary
Oxford English Dictionary
Words and Phrases (United States)
Words and Phrases contains judicial definitions, from both state and federal courts, from both published and unpublished opinions. Cases analyzed from 1658 forward. Words and Phrases coverage begins in 1781.
Available via Thomson Reuters Westlaw
Words and Phrases Canada
Words & Phrases is an editorially created product that provides to researchers who need to argue how language in contracts and other documents should be interpreted an alphabetical index of judicial interpretations of words and phrases drawn from over 100 years of Canadian case law.
Available via Thomson Reuters Westlaw

Encyclopaedias

American Jurisprudence 2d
American Jurisprudence 2d is an encyclopedia containing over 400 separate titles on a broad range of legal topics.
Available via Thomson Reuters Westlaw
Canadian Encyclopedic Digest
Canadian Encyclopedic Digest provides a comprehensive statement of the law of Ontario and the four western provinces - provincial, federal and common law - as derived from the case law and legislation. Access via Thomson Reuters Westlaw
Corpus Juris Secundum (United States)
Also known as CJS, this is another in-depth legal encyclopedia; it provides explanation of the law and annotations to related case law.
Available via Thomson Reuters Westlaw
Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine 2nd ed.
Halsbury's Laws of Australia
Available via LexisNexis AU
Halsbury's Laws of Canada
Halsbury's Laws of England
Available via LexisNexis AU
The Laws of New Zealand
The Laws of New Zealand (LONZ) is a legal encyclopaedia which covers all areas of the statute, case and regulatory law in New Zealand.
Available via LexisNexis International
Restatements and Principles of the Law (United States)
The database contains the complete text of the Restatements and Principles of the Law, which includes various Tentative Drafts and Proposed Final Drafts, and Tentative Draft-related documents from The ALI Reporter. A document is a section of the Restatements or Principles.
Available via Thomson Reuters Westlaw

Subject specific encyclopaedias and dictionaries

Crime and Criminology	Law Ref KM 695 - KM 706
Medical Law	Law Ref KN 185
Torts	Law Ref KB 100
International Law	Law Ref KC 71 - KC 405
Human Rights	Law Ref KC 200 - KC 217

Subject Guide

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Law: Dictionaries and Encyclopaedias

Dictionaries & Encyclopaedias

Dictionaries

Encyclopaedias

Subject specific encyclopaedias and dictionaries

Subject Guide