Dóms

Dóms is a term used in Icelandic grammar and law. It is the genitive singular form of the noun dómur, which means a judgment, verdict, or court decision. In legal and administrative texts, dóms appears when the sentence or ruling is referred to in a possessive or descriptive context, for example in phrases that mean “of the judgment” or “the judgment’s content.” As a grammatical form, dóms does not function as an independent lexical item with its own dictionary definition; its sense derives from the base word dómur and the syntactic role it plays. The plural form dómar refers to judgments in general.

Etymology: The Icelandic dómur comes from Old Norse dómr, related to other Germanic terms for judgment or law, and ultimately to Proto-Germanic *domaz. The genitive singular dóms preserves the historical possessive relationship to the noun.

Usage: In contemporary Icelandic, the core meaning centers on a court ruling, while dóms is encountered in constructions requiring the genitive form. The distinction between cases is primarily grammatical rather than semantic; the word indicates a relationship to a specific judgment within a sentence.

See also: dómur, dómstóll, réttur, lagar. References: Icelandic dictionaries and grammar resources.