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''court'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''court'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260715204347-00-⌔

court - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

court (plural courts)

  • An enclosed space; a courtyard; an uncovered area shut in by the walls of a building, or by different buildings; also, a space opening from a street and nearly surrounded by houses; a blind alley.
    • ✤ The girls were playing in the court.
    • ✤ All round the cool green courts there ran a row/Of cloisters, branched like mighty woods,/Echoing all night to that sonorous flow/Of spouted fountain floods.1
    • ✤ Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court.2
    • (Australia, US) A street with no outlet, a cul-de-sac.
    • (Hong Kong, only used in names) A housing estate under the Home Ownership Scheme.
    • (Hong Kong, only used in names) An apartment building, or a small development of several apartment buildings.
  • (social) Royal society.
    • The residence of a sovereign, prince, nobleman, or other dignitary; a palace.
      • ✤ The noblemen visited the queen in her court.
      • ✤ This our court, infected with their manners,/Shows like a riotous inn.3
    • The collective body of persons composing the retinue of a sovereign or person high in authority; all the surroundings of a sovereign in his regal state.
      • ✤ Meronym: royal household
      • ✤ The queen and her court traveled to the city to welcome back the soldiers.
      • ✤ My lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you.4
      • ✤ Love rules the court, the camp, the grove.5
    • Any formal assembling of the retinue of a sovereign.
      • ✤ The princesses […] held their court within the fortress.6
  • Attention directed to a person in power; behaviour designed to gain favor; politeness of manner; civility towards someone.
    • ✤ No solace could her paramour entreat/Her once to show, ne court, nor dalliance.7
    • ✤ I went to make court to the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle at their house in Clerkenwell.8
  • (law) The administration of law.
    • The hall, chamber, or place, where justice is administered.
      • ✤ Synonyms: courthouse, courtroom; see also Thesaurus: courthouse
      • ✤ Many famous criminals have been put on trial in this court.
    • The persons officially assembled under authority of law, at the appropriate time and place, for the administration of justice; an official assembly, legally met together for the transaction of judicial business; a judge or judges sitting for the hearing or trial of cases.
      • ✤ Synonyms: court of justice, tribunal; see also Thesaurus: court of law
      • ✤ The court started proceedings at 11 o’clock.
      • ✤ Next month, Clemons will be brought before a court presided over by a “special master”, who will review the case one last time. The hearing will be unprecedented in its remit, but at its core will be a simple issue: should Reggie Clemons live or die?9
      • ✤ 536(2.1)… You have the option to elect to be tried by a provincial court judge without a jury; or you may elect to be tried by a judge without a jury; or you may elect to be tried by a court composed of a judge and jury.10
    • An organization for the administration of law, consisting of a body of judges with a certain jurisdiction along with its administrative apparatus.
      • ✤ Each province in Canada has three courts: a provincial court, a superior court, and a court of appeals.
    • (often capitalized) The judge or judges or other judicial officer presiding in a particular matter, particularly as distinguished from the counsel or jury, or both.
      • ✤ A case conference in person was convened… To emphasize that it was a Court proceeding the Court was gowned.11
      • ✤ [5]… defence alleges there is a reasonable apprehension of bias based on the cumulative effect of several issues including the following: (1) The Court was “crying” during the victim impact statement; (2) The Court laughed or “scoffed” when defence stated its sentencing position;…(6) The Court ’s tone, facial expression and demeanor throughout the proceedings…12
    • The session of a judicial assembly.
      • ✤ The court is now in session.
      • ✤ On Thursday morning, a Hennepin County judge formally sentenced Julissa Thaler to the life sentence for Eli Hart’s murder. […] After court, family said their focus now turns to fundraising a playground in Mound in Eli Hart’s honor […]13
    • Any jurisdiction, civil, military, or ecclesiastical.
  • (sports) A place arranged for playing the games of tennis, basketball, handball, badminton, volleyball, squash and some other games
    • ✤ The local sports club has six tennis courts and two squash courts.
    • ✤ The shuttlecock landed outside the court.
    • ✤ By one o’clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.14
    • one of the two divisions of a tennis, badminton or volleyball court, in which the player or players of each team play
      • ✤ The photograph at left captures a great serve by Dr. Sadowsky, who will never forget one of Bobby Riggs’s serves, which had such a great spin that it landed in his court and bounced back to the other side of the net before he had a chance to return it.15
  • (ornithology) A space prepared and decorated by certain bird species in which to advertise themselves for a mate.
    • ✤ The male Wilson’s bird of paradise clears an area of rainforest to create a court in which to perform an elaborate mating dance.

Verb

court (third-person singular simple present courts, present participle courting, simple past and past participle courted)

  • (transitive) To seek to achieve or win (a prize).
    • ✤ He was courting big new accounts that previous salesmen had not attempted.
    • ✤ On the contrary, they employed the brief respite that was left them in fortifying one another’s courage, and in bearing testimony to the truth in so earnest a manner that they might almost seem to have courted the crown of martyrdom.16
    • ✤ Guilt and misery shrink, by a natural instinct, from public notice: they court privacy and solitude: and even in their choice of a grave will sometimes sequester themselves from the general population of the churchyard […]17
  • (transitive) To risk (a consequence, usually negative).
    • ✤ She courted controversy with her frank speeches.
    • ✤ It is not unknown for hot axleboxes to fail completely and for wagons to become derailed as a result. Surely it is courting disaster to allow a train to proceed for up to seven miles with a defective vehicle before it can be brought to a halt?18
  • (transitive) To attempt to attract, in any way; to invite by attractions.
    • ✤ Near-synonyms: entice, allure; see also Thesaurus: allure
    • (transitive) To try to win a commitment to marry from.
      • ✤ If either of you both love Katharina […]/Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.19
    • (transitive) To engage in behavior conducive to mating with.
      • ✤ The bird was courting a potential mate by performing an elaborate dance.
      • ✤ At this time of year, you can see many animals courting.
      • ✤ By one person, however, Portland was still assiduously courted, and that person was the king.20
      • ✤ […] a well-worn pathway courted us/To one green wicket in a privet hedge […]21
      • ✤ It is a grim, grey old town, standing on bleak, precipitous cliffs that court every passing hurricane, […]22
    • (transitive) To attempt to gain alliance with.
    • (intransitive) To engage in activities intended to win affections.
      • ✤ Synonyms: romance, solicit; see also Thesaurus: woo
      • ✤ She’s had a few beaus come courting.

Etymology

From Middle English court, from Old French cort, curt, from Late Latin cōrs, contracted from Latin cohors. Doublet of cohort.

🖼️ ➺

A court (noun sense 4.2) assembled to hear the testimony of Charles Lindbergh. The room is also a court (noun sense 4.1).

🖼️ ➺

Professional tennis players playing on a tennis court (noun sense 5) in New Delhi, India

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈkɔːt/, [ˈkʰɔːt]
    • Audio (UK, male voice): 🔊
    • Audio (UK, male voice): 🔊
  • (General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈkɔɹt/, [ˈkʰɔɹt]
    • Audio (US, female voice): 🔊
  • (without the horse–hoarse merger)
    • (rhotic) IPA: /ˈko(ː)ɹt/
    • (non-rhotic) IPA: /ˈkoət/
  • (Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /ˈkoːt/, [ˈkʰoːt]
    • Audio (Australia, male voice): 🔊
  • Homophone: caught (non-rhotic, horse–hoarse merger)
  • (South Asia) IPA: /ˈko(r)ʈ/
    • (non-rhotic) Homophones: coat, (‘w’ dropped) quote
  • Rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)t
  • Hyphenation: court

Printed 2026-07-15.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1832 December (indicated as 1833), Alfred Tennyson, “The Palace of Art”, in Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, stanza XXX, page 77: ↩

  2. 1856 February, [Thomas Babington] Macaulay, “Oliver Goldsmith”, in T[homas] F[lower] E[llis], editor, The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, new edition, London: Longman, Green, Reader, & Dyer, published 1871, →OCLC: ↩

  3. c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]: ↩

  4. c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]: ↩

  5. 1819–1824, [Lord Byron], Don Juan, London,: ↩

  6. 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter XX, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC: ↩

  7. 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC: ↩

  8. 1667 April 28 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 18 April 1667]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […]; and sold by John and Arthur Arch, […], published 1819, →OCLC: ↩

  9. 2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian: ↩

  10. 1985, “Criminal Code (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-46)”, in Justice Canada ‎, retrieved 1 March 2020: ↩

  11. 2017 May 5, Kevin R. Aalto, “Gordon v. Canada, 2017 FC 454”, in CanLII ‎, retrieved 23 February 2020: ↩

  12. 2018 August 17, M.F. McParland, “R. v. Carlson, 2018 BCPC 209”, in CanLII ‎, retrieved 1 March 2020: ↩

  13. 2023 February 16, WCCO Staff, “Julissa Thaler sentenced to life in prison for murdering 6-year-old son, Eli Hart”, in cbsnews.com ‎: ↩

  14. 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court: ↩

  15. 2010, Cara Marcus, Faulkner Hospital: ↩

  16. 1800, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of The Reign of Philip The Second, King of Spain, volume 3: ↩

  17. 1821, Thomas De Quincey, “To the Reader”, in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater: ↩

  18. 1964 April, “Automatic Signalling Problems in an Emergency”, in Modern Railways, page 273: ↩

  19. c. 1590–1592, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act 1, scene 1: ↩

  20. 1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 24, in The History of England: From the Accession of James II, volume 5: ↩

  21. a. 1835, Alfred Lord Tennyson, The Gardener’s Daughter: ↩

  22. 1902, Robert Marshall Grade, The Haunted Major: ↩

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