lawful
/ˈlɔːfl̩/US/ˈlɔfl̩/
lawful adjective: conforming to, or recognised by the laws of society.
Adjective
lawful (comparative more lawful, superlative most lawful)
- Conforming to, or recognised by the laws of society.
- Lawful money is always a land asset and can only be issued by an actual land jurisdiction government — not a corporation.
- The laws are controversial. Forcing someone to work during a lawful strike is a major step. It was always likely to inflame a situation, and so it proved with LNER. ASLEF's counter-tactic came as a five-day walkout, which would have been the longest stoppage for many years had LNER not withdrawn...2024 February 7, Philip Haigh, “Railway's fragile resilience”, in RAIL, number 1002, page 3
- Synonyms:
- just, legal, legitimate, licit
- Antonyms:
- nonlawful, unlawful, illicit, crimeful, criminal, illegal, illegitimate, lawbreaking, outlawed, wrongful
- Operating according to some law or fundamental principle.
- Or would they have it believed, that there is in their ſelves ſome ſuperior ſanctity, ſome peculiar privilege, by which theſe things are lawful to them, which are unlawful to all the world beſides?1776, Jeremy Bentham, “A Short Review of the Declaration”, in John Lind, An Anſwer to the Declaration of the American Congress, London: Thomas Cadell, page 121
- […] so that the person's actions are merely the inevitable product of lawful causes stemming from prior events […]2014, George Ortega, Free Will: Its Refutation, Societal Cost and Role in Climate Change Denial
- Of a character: having an alignment which makes them tend to follow the laws and conventions of society.
Noun
lawful (plural lawfuls)
lawful meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
lawful in Hindi
- conforming to or recognised by law or rules
- विधिक vidhik
lawful in Tamil
- சட்ட இசைவான, சட்டப்படியான, சட்டமுரண்பாடில்லாத சட்டத்திற்கு உகந்த
lawful in Marathi
- lawful, legal
- वैध vaidh
lawful in Urdu
- lawful, permissible
- حلال halāl
- lawful, just
- جائز jāiz
- lawful
- قانونی qānūnī
More languagesFewer languages
- lawful in Bengali
- আইনসম্মত, বৈধ
- lawful in Malayalam
- നിയമാനുസാരിയായ, നിയമപര, നിയമത്തെ സ്ഥാപിക്കുന്ന, യഥാന്യായമായ
- lawful in Kannada
- ಕಟ್ಟಲೆತಪ್ಪದ, ನ್ಯಾಯಸಮ್ಮತವಾದ, ಶಾಸನಬದ್ಧವಾದ
- lawful in Punjabi
- ਜਾਇਜ਼ jāiza
- lawful in Arabic
- قانوني qānūniyy
Examples of lawful in a sentence
- Forcing someone to work during a lawful strike is a major step.2024 February 7, Philip Haigh, “Railway's fragile resilience”, in RAIL, number 1002, page 3:
- [Pete] Hegseth demanded full and unrestricted access to all Anthropic’s AI models for every lawful purpose.2026 March 1, Ed Pilkington, “US military reportedly used Claude in Iran strikes despite Trump’s ban”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
Synonyms of lawful
Antonyms
1 more antonymsFewer antonyms
Forms of lawful
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more lawful |
| superlative | most lawful |
| alternative form (obsolete) | lawfull |
| Noun | |
| plural | lawfuls |
Origin of lawful
From Middle English laweful, equivalent to law + -ful, conflated with Middle English leful, leeful, leveful (“according to law, lawful, pertaining to law”). See also leveful.
Words formed from lawful
Phrases with lawful
Words that rhyme with lawful
Questions about lawful
- What does lawful mean?
- Lawful means conforming to, or recognised by the laws of society.
- What is lawful in Hindi?
- Lawful in Hindi is विधिक (vidhik). See Lawful meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use lawful in a sentence?
- Forcing someone to work during a lawful strike is a major step.
- What part of speech is lawful?
- Lawful can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce lawful?
- Lawful is pronounced /ˈlɔːfl̩/ (UK).
Words near lawful in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: lawful (page history and authors); lawful (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); वैध (Marathi) (page history and authors); جائز (Urdu) (page history and authors); Lawful (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); lawful (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); lawful (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਜਾਇਜ਼ (Punjabi) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-lawful.wav.
Cite this entry: “lawful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lawful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.