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I understand the word, "litigate" to indicate some kind of legal action. However, I have recently come across the word "re-litigate" in a context that implies a difference of opinion that has not (yet?) become a matter for the courts.

  • Is a non-legal sense of "re-litigate" common usage?

I've lived all my life in the UK, but to my recollection, I have not heard the word before.

  • Is usage of the the word "re-litigate" more common outside the UK? In the US, for example?
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    It just means "litigate again". In a context where litigate implies legal proceedings, so does re-litigate; if not, not.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Oct 23, 2019 at 19:24
  • Your title appears to be asking a slightly different question to the body.
    – marcellothearcane
    Commented Oct 23, 2019 at 19:49
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    I would characterize the term, when it occurs in general use, as a "learned borrowing" —that is, as a term that has or had a specific meaning in the field where it originated (in this case, law), but that has acquired a much less precise meaning in the wider world of nonspecialists, who use it without particular regard for its original meaning. Wilson Follett, in Modern American Usage calls such terms "popularized technicalities." Either way, the point is that the term, as popularly used, is neither technically accurate nor evidence of advanced learning.
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Jun 20 at 23:25
  • @SvenYargs Nice! I think I like popularized technicality; I hadn't heard it before. Sometimes it seems like there sure are a lot of those, but this perception probably depends on whether you're listening to people who for whatever reason regularly wish to convey to their listeners or readers some vague impression of technical accuracy or advanced learning while possessing neither.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented Jun 20 at 23:59
  • @tchrist: Here is how Follett frames his discussion: "In our time what is technical and professional is in high repute; what comes from the amateur is regarded as amateurish. Consequently many phrases have been borrowed from the sciences, the techniques, and the professions to adorn and lend expressiveness to ordinary prose. The choice and application of these words and phrases have naturally not been controlled by the experts; the transfer has indeed been amateurish, and examination shows that a good many of the new new terms simply duplicate or replace simple words long in use."
    – Sven Yargs
    Commented Jun 21 at 0:40

2 Answers 2

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Not a common usage, probably based on sense of litigate: (archaic) : Dispute. (M-W)

Relitigate: (transitive) To dispute, debate, contest again.

2010, Lexington, The Economist, 5 Aug 2010: Like Mr bin Laden, Mr Gingrich is apparently still relitigating the victories and defeats of religious wars fought in Europe and the Middle East centuries ago.

(Wiktionary)

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    Synonymous to 'appealing judgement' then?
    – marcellothearcane
    Commented Oct 23, 2019 at 19:49
  • I think it has more the sense of re-fighting or at least vociferously disputing, for instance in that quote.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jun 21 at 8:20
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Yes, I believe you're right the word seems to be almost exclusively used in, or by, those from the USA. My ears pricked up on hearing Rishi Sunak, (current UK Prime Minister) use it during the "Question Time 2024: Leaders' Special" (Election programme) on BBC1 tonight. He, however, went to Stanford, ran a hedge fund in the USA, met his wife there and reportedly has a $7.2 million beach home in Santa Monica. The OED. cites an example of its use by Richard Simpson, an English, Roman Catholic convert and scholar in 1847, I haven't breached their paywall to discover more about this but gather from elsewhere that he was born in Surrey and died in Italy, having become something of a linguist whilst travelling on the European continent the 1840s. I haven't, though, seen anything to suggest that he journeyed so far as the USA.

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