Definition

properly, a verdict (favorable or unfavorable) pronounced judicially, especially a sentence or formal decree (human or (participant's) divine law, individual or collective), including the act, the place, the suit, the crime, and the penalty; abstractly, justice, including a participant's right or privilege (statutory or customary), or even a style

Etymology

from H8199 (שָׁפַט);

Where the KJV renders it

• adversary
• ceremony
• charge
• crime
• custom
• desert
• determination
• discretion
• disposing
• due
• fashion
• form
• to be judged
• judgment
• just(-ice
• -ly)
• (manner of) law(-ful)
• manner
• measure
• (due) order
• ordinance
• right
• sentence
• usest
• worthy
• wrong

Every distinct English word the King James Version uses to translate this Hebrew term. The variety shows what readers in English receive across many different surface words — the same underlying word, scattered across the English Bible under different names.

What the first audience heard

A deep-dive treatment of this word is in the works. The featured chapter above carries the long form of what this word meant to its first audience.