Dictum

In general. A statement, remark or observation. Oratis dictum; a gratuitous or voluntary representation; one which a party is not bound to make. 2 Kent, Comm. 486. Simplex dictum; a mere assertion; an assertion without proof. Bract, fol. 320. The word is generally used as an abbreviated form of obiter dictum, "a remark by the way;" that is, an observation or remark made by a judge in pronouncing an opinion upon a cause, concerning some rule, principle, or application of law, or the solution of a question suggested by the case at bar, but not necessarily involved in the case or essential to its determination; any statement of the law enunciated by the court merely by way of illustration, argument, analogy, or suggestion. See Railroad Co. v. Schutte, 103 U. S. 118,143, 26 In Ed. 327; In re Woodruff (D. C.) 96 Fed. 317; Hart v. Stribling, 25 Fla. 433, 6 South. 455; Buchner v. Railroad Oo„ 60 Wis. 264, 19 N. W. 56; Rush v. French, 1 Ariz. 99, 25 Pan. 816; State v. Clarke, 3 Nev. 572. Dicta are opinions of a judge which do not embody the resolution or determination of the couit, and made without argument, or full consideration of the point, are not the professed deliberate determinations of the judge himself. Obiter dicta are such opinions uttered by the way, not upon the point or question pending, as if turning aside for the lime from the main topic of the case to collateral subjects. Rohrbach v. Insurance Co., 62 N. Y. 47, 58, 20 Am. Repi 451 In old English law. Dictum meant an arbitrament or the award of arbitrators.

In French law. The report of a judgment made by one of the judges who has given it Poth. Proc. Civil, pt. 1, c. 5, art. 2.

— Dictum de Kenilworth. The edict or declaration of Kenilworth. An edict or award between King Henry III. and nil the barons and others who had been in arms against him; and so called because it was made at Kenilworth Castle in Warwickshire, in the fifty-first year of his reign, containing a composition or five years' rent for the lands and es tates of those who had forfeited them in that rebellion. Blount; 2 Reeve, Eng. Law, 62.