Obiter dictum
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An obiter dictum is literally a “statement made in passing”; tossed off, as it were, by a court en route to a different a legal determination (a “ratio decidendi”).
A chance remark; a passing observation; a bon mot not entirely on point to the matter at hand but which, if not strictly binding on a subsequently convened lower court, is apt to make it swoon with admiration all the same.