三者均有使判决等作废或失去效力的含义。其中，reverse 为“撤销”，多指上诉法院作相反判决，撤销原判的排他性行为(of an appellate court，to nullify the judgment of a lower court in a case on appeal because of some error in the court below [1])。而vacate为“废止”，其可指上诉法院废止下级法院的判决，此时它等同“撤销”原判；但审理法院也可以自己废止原判决，此时它便与reverse的含义有差异（to nullify a judgment or court order. This may be done by the court that issued the original judgment or order, or by a higher court on appeal [2])。overrule 为“推翻”，常用于法院推翻先例，使其不再具有拘束力（of a court, to overturn or set aside a precedent by expressly deciding that it should no longer be controlling law [3])，如：In Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court overruled Plessy v. Ferguson（在布朗诉教育委员会一案中，联邦最高法院推翻了普莱西诉弗格森案之先例）.

[1] Cf. James E. Clapp, Random House Dictionary of the Law, at p. 377, Random House, New York (2000).

[1] Id at p. 451

[1] Cf. Bryan A. Gamer, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th edition, at p. 1131, West Group (1999).

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