PANDECTS, PANDECTÆ, in jurisprudence, the digest or collection, made by Justinian's order, of 534 decisions or judgments of the ancient lawyers, on as many questions
occurring in the civil law; to all which that emperor gave Pandect the force and authority of law, by the epistle prefixed to the collection. The word is Greek, Πανδίκται, being compounded of παν, all, and δίκαι, I take; that is, a compilation, or a book containing everything relative to public and private rights. Others, however, as Bartoli, think it was formed from παν, and δίκαι, because these books were supposed to contain the whole doctrine of the civil law. See the article CIVIL LAW.
PANDICULATION is that violent and extensive motion of the solids which usually accompanies the act of yawning.