Word.ws English Dictionary

lawting

lawting noun: the highest court, which was held every summer from medieval times until around the 17th century.

Noun

lawting (plural lawtings)

  1. (Orkney, Shetland, historical) The highest court, which was held every summer from medieval times until around the 17th century.
    • Thorvald evidently felt he had to clear himself of the charges and so, at the next lawthing, he had 'all logðingismenn of Shetland' (as they called themselves) write a letter of witness laying out the facts of the case as they saw them and testifying to Ragnhild's intemperate words.2012, Olwyn Owen, editor, Things in the Viking World, Lerwick: Shetland Amenity Trust, →ISBN, page 14

Forms of lawting

plurallawtings
alternative formlawthing

Origin of lawting

From Norn, ultimately from Old Norse lǫg (“law”) + þing (“a legal assembly”). Doublet of Lagting.

Questions about lawting

What does lawting mean?
Lawting means the highest court, which was held every summer from medieval times until around the 17th century.
What part of speech is lawting?
Lawting is a noun.
What is the plural of lawting?
The plural of lawting is lawtings.

Words near lawting in the dictionary

  1. Lawters
  2. Lawther
  3. Lawthers
  4. lawthing
  5. lawthings
  6. lawting
  7. lawtings
  8. Lawton
  9. Lawtons
  10. LawTube
  11. LawTuber

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lawting (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: “lawting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lawting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.