oyez. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

oyez

SYLLABICATION:	o·yez
PRONUNCIATION:	ys, yz, y
VARIANT FORMS:	also o·yes ( ys)
INTERJECTION:	Used three times in succession to introduce the opening of a court of law.
NOUN:	Inflected forms: pl. o·yes·ses (ysz) This cry, used to open a court.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English, from Anglo-Norman French hear ye, imperative pl. of oyer, to hear, from Latin audre. See au- in Appendix I.
WORD HISTORY:	The courtroom cry “Oyez, oyez, oyez,” has probably puzzled more than one auditor, especially if pronounced “O yes.” (Many people have thought that the words were in fact O yes.) This cry serves to remind us that up until the 18th century, speaking English in a British court of law was not required and one could instead use Law French, a form of French that evolved after the Norman Conquest, when Anglo-Norman became the language of the official class in England. Oyez descends from the Anglo-Norman oyez, the plural imperative form of oyer, “to hear”; thus oyez means “hear ye” and was used as a call for silence and attention. Although it would have been much heard in Medieval England, it is first recorded as an English word fairly late in the Middle English period, in a work composed around 1425.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.