judgment

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You may swim this summer, but is the past tense "swum" or
"swam?" Check out our Concise Dictionary of English Usage.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/book.pl?conusg.htm&6
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The Word of the Day for July 26 is:

judgment   \JUJ-munt\   noun
     1 a : a formal utterance of an authoritative opinion
    *2 : the capacity for judging or the exercise of this capacity 

Example sentence: 
     Theresa showed good judgment by clearing her family out of the house as 
soon as she smelled gas.

Did you know? 
     "Judgment" can also be spelled "judgement," and usage experts have long 
disagreed over which spelling is the preferred one. Henry Fowler asserted, "The 
OED [_Oxford English Dictionary_] prefers the older and more reasonable 
spelling. 'Judgement' is therefore here recommended." William Safire held an 
opposite opinion, writing, "My judgment is that Fowler is not to be followed." 
"Judgement" is in fact the older spelling, but it dropped from favor and for 
centuries "judgment" was the only spelling to appear in dictionaries. That 
changed when the OED (Fowler's source) was published showing "judgement" as an 
equal variant. Today, both spellings of the word are common. "Judgment" appears 
to be more popular in the U.S., whereas "judgement" is slightly more frequent 
in Britain.

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.