Cite as: 523 U. S. 653 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
tionary 984 (2d ed. 1950) (def. 2). Even applying that definition, the Government must make a considerable stretch to bring the present case within it. This suit obviously does not have as its "purpose or object" violation of any contract. The most the Government can assert (and it falls short of the definition) is that the suit seeks to facilitate "what otherwise would be . . . contract violation[s]." Brief for United States 11 (emphasis added).
More basically, however, it is a "fundamental principle of statutory construction (and, indeed, of language itself) that the meaning of a word cannot be determined in isolation, but must be drawn from the context in which it is used." Deal v. United States, 508 U. S. 129, 132 (1993). Accord, Cohen v. de la Cruz, ante, at 220. It is not the meaning of "for" we are seeking here, but the meaning of "[s]uits for violation of contracts." That phrase cannot possibly bear the meaning ascribed to it by the Government. No one, for example, would describe a corporation's harassing lawsuit against a competitor as a "suit for unfair competition," even though that is precisely its "goal or object." In the same vein, a suit "for violation of a contract" is not one filed "with a view to" a future contract violation (much less to facilitate action that "otherwise would be" a contract violation). It is one filed because a contract has been violated, just as a suit "for unfair competition" is one filed because unfair competition has occurred. In this context, the word "for" has an unmistakably backward-looking connotation, i. e., "[i]ndicating the cause, motive, or occasion of an act, state, or condition; hence, because of; on account of; in consequence of; as the effect of; for the sake of; as, cursed himself for showing leniency." Webster's New International Dictionary 984 (2d ed. 1950) (def. 7). "Suits for violation of contracts" under § 301(a) are not suits that claim a contract is invalid, but suits that claim a contract has been violated.
This does not mean that a federal court can never adjudicate the validity of a contract under § 301(a). That provision
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