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A dissenting opinion is an opinion of one or more judges in an appellate court expressing disagreement with the majority opinion. By definition, a dissent is the minority of the court.

A dissenting opinion cannot create binding precedent because the holding in the opinion is not the holding of the court in the case. Therefore the dissent's holding does not create case law. However, dissenting opinions are sometimes cited as persuasive authority when arguing that the holding should be limited or overturned. In some cases, a dissent in an earlier case is used to spurn a change in the law, and a later case will write a majority opinion for the same rule of law cited by the dissent in the earlier case.

Unlike a concurring opinion, the dissent does not agree with the judgment and would have ruled opposite the majority. This can be for any number of reasons: a different interpretation of the case law, use of different principles, or a different interpretation of the facts. Dissents are written at the same time as the majority opinion, and are often used to disprove the reasoning used by the majority. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is a frequent writer of dissents, and uses them to make comments regarding the majority opinion; Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was a frequent target of Scalia's dissenting opinions.

A dissent in part is a dissenting opinion which disagrees only with some specific part of the majority holding. In decisions that require multi-part holdings because they involve multiple legal claims or consolidated cases, judges may write an opinion "concurring in part and dissenting in part."

• Opinion
• Concurring opinion
• Plurality opinion
• Majority opinion

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