ABSTRACT
AtleastsinceJohnCowell'sInterpreterwasadjudgedbythe CommitteeonGrievancesoftheHouseofCommonsin1610tobe"very unadvised,andundiscreet,tendingtothedisreputationofthehonourand powerofthecommonlaws"havelawdictionariesbeenobjectsofoccasionalcontroversy.IYetlegaldictionaries,aswellasdictionariesmore generally,haveremainedaconstantresourceinAmericanlawforthose seekingtogivemeaningtothewordsofbothstatutesandconstitutional provisions.Theyhaveappearedinthepagesofthereportssincethe beginningoftherepublic;2amajorityofthejusticesoftheSupreme Court,atonetimeoranother,haveturnedtothem;3theyhavenotbeen simplytherefugeofthelessersortswhohaveascendedthehighestbench, buthavebeenrelieduponbythosejusticesgenerallyheldingreatest esteem;4andtheirusehasneverbeenthepreserveofanyparticular
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resorting to dictionaries to find legal meaning, the most frequently cited being Judge Learned Hand's admonition that judges ought "not to make a fortress out of a dictionary."6 Over the past fifteen years or so, however, what had been merely scattered concerns have coalesced into a focused argument against the dangers of dictionaries as tools of interpretation.? Dictionaries, it is argued, suffer from a "fundamental indeterminacy" that can "mask fundamental arbitrariness with the appearance of rationality."S Another critic sees dictionaries as simply creating an endlessly circular exercise: "Lexicographers define words with words. Words in the definition are defined by more words, as are those words." As a result, relying on a dictionary "simply pushes the problem back."9 Perhaps most damning is the claim that a judge can scan "dictionaries until he finds the definition that suits his purposes," thereby undermining the greatest claim for using dictionaries in the first place-their alleged "objectivity."IO
5. See the general survey provided by Thumma and Kirchmeier in their three appendices, "The Lexicon has Become a Fortress."
