law

Noun (1)

law (countable and uncountable, plural laws)

1. (usually) The body of binding rules and regulations, customs, and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.
   • Not unnaturally, "Auntie" took this communication in bad part.[…]Next day she[…]tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head. Then, thwarted, the wretched creature went to the police for help; she was versed in the law, and perhaps had spared no pains to keep on good terms with the local...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 361
   • Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in "the law" as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible. It is not that anyone imagines the law to...1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I
   1. (usually) The body of such rules that pertain to a particular topic.
      • property law
      • commercial hunting and fishing law
   2. (usually) Common law, as contrasted with equity.
2. A binding regulation or custom established in a community in this way.
   • There is a law against importing wallabies.
   • A new law forbids driving on that road.
3. (broadly) Any rule that must or should be obeyed, concerning behaviours and their consequences. (Compare mores.)
   • "Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you" is a good law to follow.
   • the law of self-preservation
4. (broadly) A rule or principle regarding the construction of language or art.
   • the laws of playwriting and poetry
   • The normal pronoun to use with "spirit" would be "it." But Jesus breaks the law of grammar and says not "when it," but "when he."1997, Derek Prince, If you Want God's Best, →ISBN
5. (broadly) A statement (in physics, etc) of an (observed, established) order or sequence or relationship of phenomena which is invariable under certain conditions. (Compare theory.)
   • Observing pi is easier than studying physical phenomena, because you can prove things in mathematics, whereas you can't prove anything in physics. And, unfortunately, the laws of physics change once every generation.1992 March 2, Richard Preston, “The Mountains of Pi”, in The New Yorker
   • the laws of thermodynamics

   Synonyms:

   law of nature

6. (broadly) A statement (of relation) that is true under specified conditions; a mathematical or logical rule.
   • Mathematical laws can be proved purely through mathematics, without scientific experimentation.
7. (broadly) Any statement of the relation of acts and conditions to their consequences.
   • the law of scarcity
   • the law of supply and demand
8. (broadly) A sound law; a regular change in the pronunciation of a language.
   • Grimm's law
   • Dahl's law
9. (broadly) One of the official rules of cricket as codified by the its (former) governing body, the MCC.
10. The control and order brought about by the observance of such rules.
    • They worked to maintain law and order.
    • It was a territory without law, marked by violence.
11. (informal) A person or group that act(s) with authority to uphold such rules and order (for example, one or more police officers).
    • Here comes the law — run!
    • then the law arrived on the scene
12. The profession that deals with such rules (as lawyers, judges, police officers, etc).
    • He is studying for a career in law.
    • She has practiced law in New York for twenty years.

Verb

law (third-person singular simple present laws, present participle lawing, simple past and past participle lawed)

1. (obsolete) To work as a lawyer; to practice law.
   • That was in 1877 you were lawing with Herdick?1889, New York (State). Court of Appeals, New York Court of Appeals. Records and Briefs, page 71
   • J. H. Turner is married and lawing in Milwaukee.1897, The Scroll of Phi Delta Theta - Volume 21, page 210
2. (ambitransitive, dialectal) To prosecute or sue (someone), to litigate.
   • Your husband's … so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly off when he dies.1860, George Eliot (Mary Anne Lewes), The Mill on the Floss
   • "I like folks to be up and down and square," she began saying, as she vigilantly watched the effect of her culinary skill upon the awed little party. "Yes, I've got a regular hotel license; you bet I have. There's been folks lawed in this town for sellin' a meal of victuals and not having one."1886, Charles Dudley Warner, Their Pilgrimage, page 144
3. (nonstandard) To rule over (with a certain effect) by law; to govern.
   • At its 1933 session, the Kansas legislature provided for funding outstanding bills and floating debts of those cities which could not make payment by a fixed date. By this stroke of its imagination, the legislature lawed all Kansas cities onto a "cash" basis and admonished them to stay there.1939, Henry Green Hodges, City management: theory and practice of municipal administration
   • Earth lies in the chorus of the stars' congregation in the lawed line of their movement, in the balanced rotation of their light, bound by that lawed line, conceived in the focus of that turning; a vessel fashioned on the wheel of endless time.1969, Aryan Path - Volume 40, page 338
4. (informal) To enforce the law.
   • De gram jury lawed me all de time an' dat place got too hot.1918, Eldred Kurtz Means, E.K. Means, page 50
   • The only time I ever got lawed [arrested] was for the union. Happened three times.1972, Bill Peterson, Coaltown revisited: an Appalachian notebook, page 28
5. To subject to legal restrictions.
   • Insurance may fairly be said to head the list of objects of legislative interference. It has been lawed and lawed until it is nearly outlawed, and the cry for more continues to go up unsatisfied1895, The Chronicle - Volumes 55-56, page 125
   • No man knew what his water rights were until they had been lawed over, and lawed over, and lawed over again.1914, California Outlook - Volume 16, page lxx

Noun (2)

law (plural laws)

1. (obsolete) A tumulus of stones.
2. (Northern England, Scotland, archaic) A hill.
   • [Y]ou might climb the Law, where the whale's jawbone stood landmark in the buzzing wind, and behold the face of many counties, and the smoke and spires of many towns, and the sails of distant ships.1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Lantern-bearers”, in Across the Plains: With Other Memories and Essays, London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, part I, page 209

Noun (3)

law (plural laws)

1. (dialectal, obsolete) A score; share of expense; legal charge.

Interjection

1. (dated) An exclamation of mild surprise; lawks; in interjections, a minced oath for Lord.
   • ‘Do tell me once for all, whether you intend to marry Mr Watts or not?’ ‘Law Mama, how can I tell you what I don't know myself?’1791-92, Jane Austen, ‘The Three Sisters’, Juvenilia
   • […] and my boots were a leetle 'eavier than they are, law bless my soul! I'd do it myself.1870, Arthur William A'Beckett, The Tomahawk: A Saturday Journal of Satire, page 104

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Law

Law (plural Laws)

1. A surname originating as a patronymic.
2. A diminutive of the male given name Lawrence.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Law

Law (countable and uncountable, plural Laws)

1. A topographic surname from Old English, perhaps originally meaning someone who lives near a burial mound.
2. (Scotland) a conical hill
3. A village in South Lanarkshire council area, Scotland, United Kingdom (OS grid ref NS8252).

Proper noun (3) capitalized: Law

Law

1. (Judaism) 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.

   Synonyms:

   Torah

2. the commandments in the Books of Moses, sometimes seen as transcended by Christ
3. (less often) the commandments and moral principles that are binding for Christians, such as the Decalogue, the teachings of the New Testament, the Church Fathers, etc.

Proper noun (4) capitalized: Law

Law

1. A surname from Chinese.

Noun (4) capitalized: LAW

LAW (plural LAWs)

1. (abbreviation, acronym) Acronym of light anti-tank weapon.