Original public meaning
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Original public meaning constitutional
How an ordinary, informed person would have understood the words of the Constitution at the time it was written and ratified.
Technical: The interpretive method (public-meaning originalism) that fixes a constitutional provision's meaning to the ordinary meaning its words bore to the public at ratification — for which founding-era dictionaries, usage, and legal sources are primary evidence.
Founding-era note: This is the method that makes founding-era dictionaries legally useful. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Court used founding-era dictionaries, including Samuel Johnson's (1755) and Noah Webster's (1828), to fix the meaning of 'arms' and 'bear arms.'
A dictionary entry is reference: it describes how a term is used. It is not itself binding law. Why that matters →
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