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Latin shorthand for 'the thing I just cited'.
Also known as: Latin words in a footnote
A small set of back-references that shorten footnotes and break the moment anything is inserted above them. 'Ibid' means the immediately preceding source; 'supra' means one cited earlier; and both are relative, which is why they are fragile.
Ibid refers to the source cited in the immediately preceding note; supra to one cited earlier, usually with the note number; op cit to a work already cited, now largely abandoned as too ambiguous.
A record about how a reference is written, not about what the law says. Nothing here is legal advice.
All of them are relative references, so inserting a footnote above one silently changes what it points at. This is the commonest way a set of references is broken during editing.
A back-reference is only correct relative to the note order at the time it was written.
OSCOLA retains ibid and supra and drops op cit and loc cit entirely, on the ground that a short form of the author's name is clearer than a Latin tag pointing at an unspecified earlier note.
United Kingdom
A short italic Latin word in a footnote, sometimes followed by a numeral.