common law
"common-law" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“common law” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Law developed by judges, courts, and agency adjudicatory tribunals, through their decisions and opinions (also called case law) (as opposed to statutes promulgated by legislatures, and regulations ...
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | common law |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “common law” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
common law is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.
common law doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Inherited from Middle English comun lawe, comune lawe (“general law, common law”), from comun (“shared, universal”) + lawe (“law”), referring to the law's uniform nature throughout a jurisdiction. Compare Medieval Latin lex commūne, iūs commūne and Anglo-No… The correct English form is common law, spelled C-O-M-M-O-N- -L-A-W.
Definition
- 1Law developed by judges, courts, and agency adjudicatory tribunals, through their decisions and opinions (also called case law) (as opposed to statutes promulgated by legislatures, and regulations promulgated by the executive branch).
- 2Legal system mainly in England and its former colonies with a heavy emphasis on judge-made law, doctrines deduced by casuistry rather than from general principles, and law distributed among judicial decisions rather than codified statutes (as opposed to civil law).
- 3Body of law and procedure administered in certain courts (known as law courts) in England and its former colonies characterized by a rigid system of writs, with a limited set of remedies (as opposed to equity or admiralty).
- 4Law of general application throughout a country, province, or state as opposed to law having only a special or local application
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English comun lawe, comune lawe (“general law, common law”), from comun (“shared, universal”) + lawe (“law”), referring to the law's uniform nature throughout a jurisdiction. Compare Medieval Latin lex commūne, iūs commūne and Anglo-Norman commune lei.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “common law”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-M-M-O-N- -L-A-W - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.