Why use legal dictionaries and encyclopedias?Dictionaries and encyclopaedias are great to use to start your research.
You can:
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.
| Australian Law Dictionary | A key reference for those who need knowledge of Australian legal terms. |
| Black's Law Dictionary (United States) | Black's Law Dictionary. Current through the 11th edition (2019). |
| Butterworths Australian Legal Dictionary | Electronic title known as Encyclopaedic Australian Legal Dictionary. |
| Encyclopaedic Australian Legal Dictionary | Over 25,000 definitions covering all areas of the law. Includes legislation and case references. |
| Oxford English Dictionary | A guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of 600,000 words— past and present—from across the English-speaking world. |
| 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States) | Words and Phrases contains judicial definitions, from both state and federal courts, from both published and unpublished opinions.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. |
| 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. |
| American Jurisprudence 2d | American Jurisprudence 2d is an encyclopedia containing over 400 separate titles on a broad range of legal topics. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Encyclopedia of Forensic and Legal Medicine 2nd ed. | |
| Halsbury's Laws of Australia | Covers a variety of Australian legal subjects, mostly at an intermediate level. Commentary on the law includes references to Australian legislative and judicial authority. |
| Halsbury's Laws of Canada | |
| Halsbury's Laws of England | |
| Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law | The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL) is an online encyclopedia dealing with international law. |
| 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. |
| 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 |
