DOOM

doom,  n.  Hist.  1.A  statute  or  law.  2.  A  judgment;  esp.,  a  sentence  in  a  criminal  matter.  3.

Justice; fairness. 4. A trial; the process of adjudicating.

“The  word  ‘doom’  is,  perhaps,  best  translated  as  ‘judgment.’  It  survived  in  occasional  use

until the fourteenth century. Wyclif’s translation of the Bible, rendering the verse, ‘For with what

judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged,’ as ‘For in what dome ye demen, ye schuln be demed.’ The

distinction which we make to-day between the legislator, who makes the law, and the judge, who

interprets, declares and applies it, was not known to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The dooms were

judgments  in  the  sense  that  they  were  declarations  of  the  law  of  the  people.”  W.J.V.  Windeyer,

Lectures on Legal History 1 (2d ed. 1949). [Blacks Law 8th]