English Reference
Idiom idiom

de jure

C2 Formal Roman origin
Meaning

According to the law, whether or not that is what actually happens.

Examples
SIMPLE

“De jure the island belongs to them; de facto it does not.”

CONTEXTUAL

“The practice was abolished de jure in 1965 and carried on in several districts for another twenty years.”

COMPLEX

“Recognising the new administration de jure would have committed three governments to a position none of them wanted to defend, so they dealt with it de facto instead and said nothing in public.”

Origin

De jure is the other half of the pair — from the law, by right — and it is the older and grander of the two. Ius, the Latin word behind it, is the whole body of law and right, the word that gives English jurist, jurisdiction, justice and injury.

Roman jurists needed the distinction because a person could very obviously possess something without being entitled to it, and the entire law of possession is built on keeping the two questions apart. Later international lawyers put the same distinction to work on governments and borders.

In English the two almost always travel together, and the interesting sentences are the ones where they come apart: segregation that was outlawed de jure and continued de facto, a monarch who reigns de jure while somebody else governs.

The Law's Latinconnected storiesSee all Roman origin →

Roman legal Latin that never left the courtroom — or the boardroom.

  1. 01

    bona fide (idiom)

    Genuine and honestly meant — the real thing, not a pretence.

    The Roman standard of good faith.
  2. 02

    caveat emptor (idiom)

    Let the buyer beware — checking what you are buying is your own problem.

    What Rome did not actually say.
  3. 03

    quid pro quo (idiom)

    Something given in return for something else, usually as an understood trade.

    From the apothecary's substitute.
  4. 04

    de facto (idiom)

    In practice, whatever the official position says.

    The question of fact.
  5. 05

    ipso facto (idiom)

    By that very fact — the consequence follows automatically, with no further step.

    Consequences that need no hearing.
  6. 06

    the status quo (idiom)

    The way things currently are, especially when someone wants to keep them that way.

    In statu quo ante bellum.

Last updated August 3, 2026