kangaroo court
6
8.8
- noun
- /ˌkæŋɡəˈruː kɔrt/
- Informal
:
tribunal de farsa
- After reviewing the evidence, many observers concluded that it was a kangaroo court with no regard for fairness.
- kangaroo court proceedings
- kangaroo court system
And so they develop speech codes, kangaroo courts to enforce the speech codes.
- And so they develop speech codes, kangaroo courts to enforce the speech codes.
- It's a bit of a sort of kangaroo court, sham trial late at night, found guilty.
- And it's just like a basic kangaroo court for a bunch of resent for single women to whine about men.
- She through what was an obviously kangaroo court, She, she was able to to to get the guilty finding he was expelled.
Examples
-
There must be accountability with no kangaroo courts.
Blog text (13) -
The defendant claimed that the proceedings were a kangaroo court designed to deliver a biased verdict.
-
The whole thing was a kangaroo court.
Blog text (12) -
Clearly a kangaroo court if there ever was one.
Blog text (6) -
It's a kangaroo court with a predetermined outcome.
-
As expected, the kangaroo court has passed a 'terrorism' verdict against another set of Oromo political prisoners.
Blog text (26) -
It was an unjust trial in a kangaroo court, but he did not complain.
Blog text (31) -
Unwittingly, they constitute themselves into kangaroo courts where imaginary judgments are passed.
Academic text (2007) -
The activist spoke out against the kangaroo court, arguing that it violated basic principles of justice.
Synonyms
1
6.9
News and social media make people judge someone before the court decides
How Fair
Surface Forms
Morphology
kangaroo + court
The meaning 'an unofficial or sham court' cannot be derived from the literal constituents 'kangaroo' (an animal) and 'court' (a judicial forum); the animal term is used idiomatically and does not signal the notion of illegitimacy in an obvious compositional way. This is a language-specific idiom with an opaque metaphorical history, so a B1 learner who knows the individual words would not reliably infer the intended meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Kangaroo court may come from the idea of a kangaroo that jumps over the normal steps of a court, so the trial skips proper rules. So the phrase means a 'sham' or 'unfair' court that ignores the law and decides in advance.