Opposable

[Benjamin Barrett]

Black's does not list this term, which seems to have a specific legal
definition. According to Le Grand dictionnaire
(http://www.granddictionnaire.com/btml/fra/r_motclef/index800_1.asp),
opposable means "enforceable against third parties/third persons". Does
the OED have such a definition?

The word appears to be more common in other languages such as French
(opposable). I ran into it in a Romanian source document as opozabilă
("opozabil" followed by "a" with wedge).

Two websites that mention this in English contexts apparently written by
native Anglophones are:

http://www.law.ro/corp.html
http://www.secinfo.com/d13x2f.zAc.6.htm

Benjamin Barrett
a cyberbreath for language life
livinglanguages.wordpress.com

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org