law
Meanings
- The body of binding rules and regulations, customs, and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.
- The body of such rules that pertain to a particular topic.
- Common law, as contrasted with equity.
- A binding regulation or custom established in a community in this way.
- A rule, such as:
- Any rule that must or should be obeyed, concerning behaviours and their consequences. (Compare mores.)
- A rule or principle regarding the construction of language or art.
- A statement (in physics, etc) of an (observed, established) order or sequence or relationship of phenomena which is invariable under certain conditions. (Compare theory.)
- A statement (of relation) that is true under specified conditions; a mathematical or logical rule.
- Any statement of the relation of acts and conditions to their consequences.
- A sound law; a regular change in the pronunciation of a language.
- One of the official rules of cricket as codified by the its (former) governing body, the MCC.
- To work as a lawyer; to practice law.
- To prosecute or sue (someone), to litigate.
- To rule over (with a certain effect) by law; to govern.
- To enforce the law.
- To subject to legal restrictions.
- A tumulus of stones.
- A hill.
- A score; share of expense; legal charge.
- An exclamation of mild surprise; lawks; in interjections, a minced oath for Lord.
- A surname originating as a patronymic.
- A diminutive of the male given name Lawrence.
- A topographic surname from Old English, perhaps originally meaning someone who lives near a burial mound.
- a conical hill
- A village in South Lanarkshire council area, Scotland, United Kingdom (OS grid ref NS8252).
- Synonym of Torah: the five Books of Moses, particularly the commandments in it, as well as their specification in the Mishnah and their further interpretation in later religious literature.
- the commandments in the Books of Moses, sometimes seen as transcended by Christ
- the commandments and moral principles that are binding for Christians, such as the Decalogue, the teachings of the New Testament, the Church Fathers, etc.
- A surname from Chinese.
- Acronym of light anti-tank weapon.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *lagą Old Norse lag Old Norse lǫgbor. Old English lagu Middle English lawe English law From Middle English lawe, laȝe, from Old English lagu (“law”), borrowed from Old Norse lǫg (“law”, literally “things laid down or firmly established”), originally the plural of lag (“layer, stratum, a laying in order, measure, stroke”), from Proto-Germanic *lagą (“that which is laid down”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”). Cognate with Scots law (“law”), Icelandic lög (“things laid down, law”), Faroese lóg (“law”), Norwegian lov (“law”), Swedish lag (“law”), Danish lov (“law”), Finnish laki (“law”). Compare typologically distant cognate Russian уложе́ние (uložénije). Displaced native Old English ǣ and ġesetnes. More at lay. Not related to legal, nor to French loi, Spanish ley, all of which ultimately derive from Latin lēx, from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to gather”).