How to Use legalese in a Sentence

legalese

noun
  • I was confused by the legalese in the contract.
  • You could be stuck in your legalese and call them a complainant.
    — Elizabeth Kiefer, Glamour, 30 May 2018
  • Sounds less like legalese and more like a bad Hollywood script.
    — Scott D. Pierce, The Salt Lake Tribune, 13 Aug. 2023
  • If anything, some users may rely on agents to review legalese for them.
    — Paresh Dave, Wired News, 22 May 2025
  • The deal is written in legalese and trade jargon that will be pored over by trade experts and lawyers.
    — William Mauldin, WSJ, 15 Jan. 2020
  • With that wonky bit of legalese, Congress smiled on the Bechtel clan.
    — Justin Elliott, ProPublica, 12 Aug. 2021
  • Jason Bateman should start brushing up on his legalese.
    — Brent Lang, Variety, 3 Oct. 2025
  • On the back is a dense page of fine-print legalese, which includes an extremely broad release.
    — Gene Maddaus, Variety, 25 July 2023
  • The 57-page filing contains a lot of legalese that won’t make it onto the show.
    — Scott D. Pierce, The Salt Lake Tribune, 20 June 2021
  • A little bit of drama, a little bit of comedy, the legalese of it all.
    — H. Alan Scott, Newsweek, 19 Feb. 2025
  • Now attorneys are involved and the language is filled with legalese and a more acerbic bite.
    — Mark Zeigler, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 July 2023
  • Instead of whiskey, we’d be fueled by a cocktail of righteousness and florid legalese.
    — Chris Colin, Outside Online, 30 May 2018
  • To sound cliché, what all of this legalese means is that the truth, whatever that may be, is the best defense to defamation.
    — David Kravets, Ars Technica, 7 Sep. 2017
  • While crouched in legalese, the bond documents are full of warnings that investors might not get their money back.
    — Jonathan Shorman, Kansas City Star, 9 May 2024
  • And though one announcement promises music, it’s not mentioned in the legalese.
    — Tara Nurin, Forbes, 24 Feb. 2021
  • Often, these agreements state, in dense legalese, that consumers don’t own the contents of their devices.
    — Elizabeth Kolbert, The New Yorker, 8 Mar. 2021
  • There are a few lawsuits that appear to have been filed in court, using the appropriate legalese.
    — Charles Bethea, The New Yorker, 22 May 2017
  • But making the case for the rights of nature is a hard enough battle without stepping so far afield of the standard legalese.
    — Rachel Riederer, The New Republic, 9 May 2018
  • The website may have high-minded ideals, but their termination agreements are full of hard-nosed legalese.
    — Kelsey Piper, Vox, 18 May 2024
  • In Amazon’s case, consent is often buried in legalese, and few have the time—or expertise—to parse.
    — Jason Snyder, Forbes, 11 Jan. 2025
  • In dry legalese, the court documents recount the Russian state’s case against these statements and protests.
    — Anton Troianovski, New York Times, 29 Dec. 2023
  • The legalese can be daunting, and insurance companies have a team of lawyers at their disposal.
    — Chris Gallagher, USA TODAY, 18 Apr. 2024
  • My father, a lawyer himself, was delighted to have someone in the family who could speak legalese.
    — Sally Friedman, Philly.com, 7 July 2017
  • What's more, the rule doesn't work retroactively, meaning that the Equifax legalese would not be covered anyway.
    — Greg Larose, NOLA.com, 6 Sep. 2017
  • What's more, the rule doesn't work retroactively, meaning that the Equifax legalese would not be covered anyway.
    — Brian Fung, Alaska Dispatch News, 8 Sep. 2017
  • Next, the group parsed a bit of legalese regarding the protections afforded the hosts of gleaners.
    — Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker, 23 Apr. 2018
  • This was a coup attempt, and Eastman’s memo was merely a thin veneer of legalese to justify it.
    — Matt Ford, The New Republic, 2 Aug. 2023
  • The terms and conditions of each bond can differ widely, and those details are often buried in hundreds of pages of legalese.
    — Michael Foster, Forbes, 20 Dec. 2022
  • The other was accompanied by a 93-page report, stuffed with footnotes and legalese.
    — The Economist, 5 Dec. 2019
  • Why not post this information to FaceApp's website, beyond the legalese?
    — Anchorage Daily News, 18 July 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'legalese.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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