means The official power or authority a court, government, or body has to make legal decisions and enforce them, usually within a defined territory or over certain matters.

from Straight from Latin: iurisdictio, a tidy fusion of ius, iuris ('law, right') and dictio ('a speaking, a declaration,' from dicere, 'to say'). So at its root, jurisdiction is literally 'the speaking of the law' — the act of pronouncing what is lawful. It traveled through Old French jurediction into English in the medieval period, carrying with it that old sense that authority is, fundamentally, a matter of who gets to speak the law aloud and be obeyed.