Fifth Amendment: Meaning and Definition of

Fifth' Amend'ment

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, providing chiefly that no person be required to testify against himself or herself in a criminal case and that no person be subjected to a second trial for an offense for which he or she has been duly tried previously.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.