as in bureaucratese
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Recent Examples of legalese
To help parse the legalese, Lex Machina has developed a set of rules—a sort of legal grammar for the machine.
—
IEEE Spectrum, 30 Oct. 2013
Difficult Language The first thing that many readers will notice is that both of these documents are written, essentially, in legalese.
—John Werner, Forbes, 30 Oct. 2024
The website may have high-minded ideals, but their termination agreements are full of hard-nosed legalese.
—Kelsey Piper, Vox, 18 May 2024
In a twist of municipal legalese, any charter revision floated by the mayor’s commission could block the advice-and-consent expansion from being enacted this year, as both reforms would require referendums, but only one of them can by law make it onto November’s general election ballot.
—Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News, 6 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for legalese 
IEEE Spectrum, 30 Oct. 2013
Difficult Language The first thing that many readers will notice is that both of these documents are written, essentially, in legalese.
—John Werner, Forbes, 30 Oct. 2024
The website may have high-minded ideals, but their termination agreements are full of hard-nosed legalese.
—Kelsey Piper, Vox, 18 May 2024
In a twist of municipal legalese, any charter revision floated by the mayor’s commission could block the advice-and-consent expansion from being enacted this year, as both reforms would require referendums, but only one of them can by law make it onto November’s general election ballot.
—Chris Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News, 6 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for legalese
Recent Examples of Synonyms for legalese
Noun
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Details of new initiatives were bogged down by mind-numbing bureaucratese.—
Sharon Grigsby,
Dallas News,
11 Apr. 2023
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The most striking aspect of Putin’s failure to accept responsibility for the Kursk disaster was his retreat into bureaucratese.—
Masha Gessen,
The New Yorker,
18 Mar. 2020
Noun
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This is the modernist quest reduced to Silicon Valley psychobabble.—
Alex Ross,
The New Yorker,
27 Oct. 2022
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The show is savvy enough to sense how easily human ache can fall prey to the manipulative language of certain practitioners, and how alluring psychobabble can be, in the right context.—
Sophie Gilbert,
The Atlantic,
19 Aug. 2021
Noun
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As always, Yellowjackets is full of mind-bending detours, supernatural gobbledygook, and foliage-laden costumes.—
Shirley Li,
The Atlantic,
18 Feb. 2025
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Apologies to the Lois Lane stans out there, but Adams is mostly on hand in these movies to deliver stern gobbledygook (something about isotopes?) and stare at Henry Cavill’s cheekbones.—
Matthew Jacobs,
Vulture,
6 Dec. 2024
Thesaurus Entries Near legalese
Cite this Entry
“Legalese.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/legalese. Accessed 22 Feb. 2025.
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