warrant

WOR-uhnt

meaning in plain English

A paper from a judge that lets police enter a place or arrest someone when they have a good reason to suspect a crime happened there.

for example

The officers got a warrant to go inside the house because they believed stolen goods were hidden there.

Imagine you need to check someone’s backpack for a missing phone. You can’t just look without permission, so you ask a judge for a warrant first. Without that paper saying it’s okay, you’d be breaking the rules just by opening it.