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]