Phrase guide

McNaughton rules

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

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Pronunciation

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1

noun

Meaning 1

A test of criminal insanity by which "it must be clearly proved that, at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing, or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong".

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: plural, plural-only

Qualifier: criminal law

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

1843, from the trial of Daniel McNaughton, who shot and murdered Edward Drummond, the Private Secretary to the then British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel.