In discussions of legal interpretation, there is a widespread assumption – sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit – that legal interpretation seeks the meaning of the legal texts. Frequently, all sides to a legal interpretive debate ostensibly agree that the debate concerns the meaning of a particular legal text (Berman and Toh 2013, 547, fn. 11; Greenberg 2014, 1297 fn. 19; see, e.g., Greenawalt 2004, 275–77; Alexander and Prakash 2004, 991; Goldsworthy 2009, 683; Fallon 2015, 1237, 1297–1307; Lawson 1997; Barak 2005, 3; Whittington 2010, 121; Fiss 1982, 739, 743–45; Dickerson 1975, 3, 217; for judicial examples, see the various opinions in Smith v. United States, and District of Columbia v. Heller).[4] But this apparent agreement does not in fact tell us much because the term “meaning” (and its cognates) is often used loosely and, in any event, has several senses. There is a broad use of the term in which it is a rough synonym of “implication” or “consequence.” One might ask what the outcome of a particular election means for international trade or for abortion rights.