lawe
lawe verb: to cut off the claws and balls of (e.g. a dog's forefeet, to hinder it from hunting). Also the obsolete spelling of law.
Verb
lawe (third-person singular simple present lawes, present participle lawing, simple past and past participle lawed)
- To cut off the claws and balls of (e.g. a dog's forefeet, to hinder it from hunting).
- They were enveloped in forms, and easily evaded ; like a lawed dog, too mutilated to catch their game.1808, William Gilpin, Remarks on forest scenery, and other woodland views
- In the 3 Edw II., at a Court-Leet and Court-Baron held for the manor of Sutton-Cold field, in Warwickshire, when the ancient customs of the Lordship from the time of Athelstan and until the coronation of Henry III. were testified to by the Jury, they certified that they had heard their ancestors...1866, George Richard Jesse, Researches Into the History of the British Dog
Also used as
lawe is also the obsolete spelling of law.
Examples of lawe in a sentence
- The Vicar of Bacford for the same John Miller there for the same Beatrice de Coghull for one dog not lawed.1950, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire:
- Godric rarely entered the forest, and, having already trained Harold to help with driving the sheep, at which the young dog had shown a remarkable talent, he had no wish to have him lawed.2011, Edward Rutherfurd, Sarum, →ISBN, page 511:
Forms of lawe
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | lawes |
| present participle | lawing |
| past participle | lawed |
| past | lawed |
| Noun | |
| plural | lawes |
Origin of lawe
Perhaps from law because the practice was ordained by law. Few dictionaries comment directly on the etymology of the sense, but several (which also spell the infinitive law) group it with the other verb and noun senses derived from Old English lagu (“law”).
Questions about lawe
- What does lawe mean?
- Lawe means to cut off the claws and balls of (e.g. a dog's forefeet, to hinder it from hunting).
- How do you use lawe in a sentence?
- The Vicar of Bacford for the same John Miller there for the same Beatrice de Coghull for one dog not lawed.
- What part of speech is lawe?
- Lawe is a verb.
- What is the past tense of lawe?
- The past tense of lawe is lawed.
Words near lawe in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lawe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “lawe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lawe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.