chief justice

noun

: the presiding or principal judge of a court of justice

Examples of chief justice in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Neither release explains why the chief justice stayed out of the joint statement. — Arkansas Online, 13 Nov. 2026

The new judges are now impaneled, but the chief justice denies their legitimacy, meaning no one is quite sure which set of judges is the official one. — Mark Sappenfield, Christian Science Monitor, 9 Nov. 2026

Cavanagh was unanimously chosen by her colleagues to succeed Elizabeth Clement as chief justice, as previously reported. — CBS News, 3 Nov. 2026

However, a generation that a government minister wrote off as lazy and expendable has exposed the cracks in the system that the chief justice defended. — Amrita Basu, The Conversation, 22 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1534, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for chief justice

• injustice

Kids Definition

chief justice

noun

: the presiding or principal judge of a court of justice

Legal Definition

chief justice

noun

: a chief judge of a usually higher level court

specifically, often capitalized : the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

chief justiceship noun