Word.ws English Dictionary

lay down the law

lay down the law verb: to promulgate law.

Verb

lay down the law (third-person singular simple present lays down the law, present participle laying down the law, simple past and past participle laid down the law)

  1. To promulgate law.
    • Six or eight thousand years ago / They laid down the law / In Mesopotamia1982, “Mesopotamia”, performed by The B-52's
    • [I]n other words, some Jews thought of Moses as the one who laid down the Law, while others saw him more as a prophet.2004, John Lierman, The New Testament Moses, page 125
  2. (dated) To present the law that applies to a given case.
  3. (idiomatic) To authoritatively or dogmatically assert what is permitted or not permitted.
    • He concluded this sentence with a self-important cough, as one who has laid down the law in an indisputable manner.1818, Sir Walter Scott, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, chapter 4
    • Montague could picture the grim, hawk-faced old man, sitting at the head of the council board, and laying down the law to the masters of the Metropolis.1908, Upton Sinclair, The Moneychangers, chapter 19

lay down the law meaning in Malayalam

lay down the law in Malayalam

tell someone what to do, order someone about, order someone around
അധികാരപൂർവ്വം കാര്യങ്ങൾ നിശ്ചയിക്കുക, ചട്ടമുണ്ടാക്കുക, കല്പന പുറപ്പെടുവിക്കുക, ആജ്ഞാപിക്കുക, നിഷ്കർഷിക്കുക, കുതിരകേറുക

Forms of lay down the law

third-person singular presentlays down the law
present participlelaying down the law
past participlelaid down the law
pastlaid down the law

Questions about lay down the law

What does lay down the law mean?
Lay down the law means to promulgate law.
What is lay down the law in Malayalam?
Lay down the law in Malayalam is അധികാരപൂർവ്വം കാര്യങ്ങൾ നിശ്ചയിക്കുക, ചട്ടമുണ്ടാക്കുക, കല്പന പുറപ്പെടുവിക്കുക. See Lay down the law meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is lay down the law?
Lay down the law is a verb.
What is the past tense of lay down the law?
The past tense of lay down the law is laid down the law.

Words near lay down the law in the dictionary

  1. lay down on the job
  2. lay down one's arms
  3. lay down one's flag
  4. lay down one's life
  5. lay down one's weapons
  6. lay down the law
  7. lay down the marker
  8. lay eggs
  9. lay eyes on
  10. lay figure
  11. lay figures

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lay down the law (page history and authors); lay down the law (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-lay down the law.ogg.

Cite this entry: “lay down the law.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lay_down_the_law. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.