An opinion voiced by a judge on a point of law not directly bearing on the case in question and therefore not binding

Usage examples of dictum.

Libelli famosi, cui titulus, Regii sanguinis clamor ad coelum adversus Parricidas Anglicanos, authorem recte dictum.

In an analogous case, the Court was emphatic in a dictum that Congress cannot require a jury trial where the contemnor has failed to perform a positive act for the relief of private parties.

In the case under scrutiny, the pedagogical approach of the blind woman at the far end of the ward seems to have had a decisive influence, that woman married to the ophthalmologist, who has never tired of telling us, If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals, words she repeated so often that the rest of the ward ended up by transforming her advice into a maxim, a dictum, into a doctrine, a rule of life, words which deep down were so simple and elementary, probably it was just that state of mind, propitious to any understanding of needs and circumstances, that contributed, even if only in a minor way to the warm welcome the old man with the black eyepatch found there when he peered through the door and asked those inside, Any chance of a bed here.

So, when even Tertullian still asserts that the Paraclete in the new prophets could overturn or change, and actually did change, regulations of the Apostles, there is no doubt that the new prophets themselves did not adhere to apostolic dicta and had no hesitation in deviating from them.

The Clausewitzian dictum concerning the violent nature of war is dismissed only at our peril.

Issue of originality did apply plaintiff would lose since though defendants might have used the play they had taken only what the law allowed, that is, those general themes, motives or ideas where there could be no copyright and that in any case if they did copy this constituted fair use, embracing the famous dictum that even if a law does not apply, if it did the result would be thus.

But the philosophy, the theory of government, the understanding of the framers of the constitution, must be considered, if the expression will be allowed, as obiter dicta, and be judged on their merits.

An act was the sum of its contributory parts: not another two-thousand-year-old dictum but a platitude of her Sorbonne tutor.

He laughed at those sages who declared that there was not one really happy person in the world, and he supported his denial by the unanswerable dictum: "I myself am perfectly happy.

During the wars between the Star Men and our Vanished rulers, certain captives were confined by the Archimagical College in a cavern at the base of the shaft, until they were judged and vouchsafed either clemency or death at the hands of the Sentinels of the Mortal Dictum.

It is often said that Blessed Albertus Magnus wrote thus: Non approbo dictum Avicennae et Algazel de fascinatione, quia credo quod non nocet fascinatio, nec nocere potest ars magica, nec facit aliquid ex his quae timentur de talibus.

Superficially noted long ago, categorized as a quotable quote because it touched so directly on his line of work, a dictum by Xavier Conroy drifted out of his subconscious: "Western culture is una process of transition from guilt-oriented, with a conscience, to shame-oriented, with a morbid fear of being found out.

Some of us also teach, some are consolers, and some take away life according to the Mortal Dictum.

Nam Ephoro quoquomodo dicta pro exploratis habebant Graeci plerique et Romani: ita gliscebat error posteritate.

It was the spirit of Puritanism which robbed Shelley of his children, because he would not bow to the dicta of religion.