Law, (Andrew) Bonar 1858-1923. Canadian-born British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1916-1918) and prime minister (1922-1923). |
law (lô)n.1. A rule of conduct or procedure established by custom, agreement, or authority. 2. a. The body of rules and principles governing the affairs of a community and enforced by a political authority; a legal system: international law. b. The condition of social order and justice created by adherence to such a system: a breakdown of law and civilized behavior. 3. A set of rules or principles dealing with a specific area of a legal system: tax law; criminal law. 4. A piece of enacted legislation. 5. a. The system of judicial administration giving effect to the laws of a community: All citizens are equal before the law. b. Legal action or proceedings; litigation: submit a dispute to law. c. An impromptu or extralegal system of justice substituted for established judicial procedure: frontier law. 6. a. An agency or agent responsible for enforcing the law. Often used with the: "The law . . . stormed out of the woods as the vessel was being relieved of her cargo" Sid Moody. b. Informal A police officer. Often used with the. 7. a. The science and study of law; jurisprudence. b. Knowledge of law. c. The profession of an attorney. 8. Something, such as an order or a dictum, having absolute or unquestioned authority: The commander's word was law. 9. Lawa. The body of principles or precepts held to express the divine will, especially as revealed in the Bible. b. The first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures. 10. A code of principles based on morality, conscience, or nature. 11. a. A rule or custom generally established in a particular domain: the unwritten laws of good sportsmanship. b. A way of life: the law of the jungle. 12. a. A statement describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of gravity. b. A generalization based on consistent experience or results: the law of supply and demand. 13. Mathematics A general principle or rule that is assumed or that has been proven to hold between expressions. 14. A principle of organization, procedure, or technique: the laws of grammar; the laws of visual perspective. intr.v. lawed, law·ing, laws To go to law; litigate. Idioms: a law unto (oneself) A totally independent operator: An executive who is a law unto herself. take the law into (one's) own hands To mete out justice as one sees fit without due recourse to law enforcement agencies or the courts.
[Middle English, from Old English lagu, from Old Norse *lagu, variant of lag, that which is laid down; see legh- in Indo-European roots.] |
law Noun
1. a rule or set of rules regulating what may or may not be done by members of a society or community
2. a rule or body of rules made by the legislature or other authority Related adjectives
legal,
judicial,
juridical 3. the control enforced by such rules: scant respect for the rule of law
4.
the law a. the legal or judicial system
b. the profession or practice of law
c. Informal the police or a policeman
5. law and order the policy of strict enforcement of the law, esp. against crime and violence
6. a rule of behaviour: an unwritten law that Nanny knows best
7. Also called: (law of nature) a generalization based on a recurring fact or event
8. the science or knowledge of law; jurisprudence
9. a general principle, formula, or rule in mathematics, science, or philosophy: the law of gravity
10. the Law the laws contained in the first five books of the Old Testament
11. go to law to resort to legal proceedings on some matter
12. lay down the law to speak in an authoritative manner [Old English lagu]
law (lô) A statement that describes invariable relationships among phenomena under a specified set of conditions. Boyle's law, for instance, describes what will happen to the volume of an ideal gas if its pressure changes and its temperature remains the same. The conditions under which some physical laws hold are idealized (for example, there are no ideal gases in the real world), thus some physical laws apply universally but only approximately. See Note at hypothesis. |
Lawa signature of a proxy, one who is not party to the transaction at hand. — allographic, adj.
the right of a nation at war to destroy the property of a neutral, subject to indemnification.
a state or condition of individuals or society characterized by an absence or breakdown of social and legal norms and values, as in the case of an uprooted people. — anomic, adj.
a real or apparent contradiction in a statute. — antinomic, antinomian, adj.
the theological doctrine maintaining that Christians are freed from both moral and civil law by God’s gift of grace. — antinomian, antinomist, n.
the solemn affirmation of the truth of a statement. — asseverator, n. — asseverative, adj.
the crime of adultery.
the offense of frequently exciting or stirring up suits and quarrels between others. — barrator, n. — barratrous, adj.
an intentional act that, directly or indirectly, causes harmful contact with another’s person.
a legal notice to beware; a notice placed on file until the caveator can be heard. — caveator, n. — caveatee, n.
a person who studies civil law.
formerly, in common law, acquittal on the basis of endorsement by the friends or neighbors of the accused. Also called trial by wager of law. — compurgator, n. — compurgatory, adj.
one who testifies to the innocence of an accused person.
a person who puts a particular interpretation on provisions of the U.S. Constitution, especially those provisions dealing with the rights of individuals and states.
the status of a married woman.
an act or action having the character of a crime. Also criminality. — criminal, n., adj.
1. the condition of blameworthiness, criminality, censurability.
2. Obsolete, guilt. — culpable, adj.
a condition of guilt; failure to do that which the law or other obligation requires. See also
finance. —
delinquent,
adj.
Obsolete, a delineation of jurisdiction.
an abnormal fear or dislike of justice.
Archaic. 1. the act of disinheriting.
2. the condition of being disinherited.
any unreasonable harshness or severity in laws. — Draconian, Draconic, adj.
the right one landowner has been granted over the land of another, as the right of access to water, right of way, etc., at no charge.
1. a specialist in law relating to the feudal system.
2. a person who holds or Iets land under the provisions of the feudal system.
a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another. — fiducial, fiduciary, adj.
1. law as a science or philosophy.
2. a system of laws or a particular branch of law. — jurisprudent, adj.
an expert on the codification and revision of Roman laws ordered by the 6th-century Byzantine emperor Justinian. — Justinian code, n.
language typical of lawyers, laws, legal forms, etc., characterized by archaic usage, prolixity, redundancy and extreme thoroughness.
a strict and usually literal adherence to the law. — legalistic, adj.
a person who is skilled or well versed in law.
a compulsion for involving oneself in legal disputes.
the practice of religious legalism, especially the basing of standards of good actions upon the moral law.
a system of government based on a legal code.
1. the art of drafting laws.
2. a treatise on the drawing up of laws. — nomographer, n. — nomographic, adj.
the science of law. — nomologist, n. — nomological, adj.
the state of being under the age required by law to enter into certain responsibilities or obligations, as marrying, entering into contracts, etc. See also
church;
property and ownership.
a legal code or complete body or system of laws.
1. the writer of a complete code of the laws of a country.
2. the writer of a complete digest of materials on a subject.
1. a lawyer whose practice is of a small or petty character; a lawyer of little importance.
2. a shyster lawyer. — pettifoggery, n.
the rights or legal status of the last child bom in a family. Also called ultimogeniture. Cf. primogeniture.
the rights or legal status of the first born in a family. Cf. postremogeniture.
an expert in public or international law.
the advocacy of revision, especially in relation to court decisions. — revisionist, n. — revisionary, adj.
1. the state or practice of being a squatter, or one who settles on government land, thereby establishing ownership.
2. the state or practice of settling in vacant or abandoned property, either for shelter or in an attempt to establish ownership. — squatter, n.
the drawing up of legal documents. — symbolaeographer, n.
postremogeniture.
1. the condition of land tenure of a vassal.
2. the fief or lands held.
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
| Noun | 1. | law - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order"award, awarding - a grant made by a law court; "he criticized the awarding of compensation by the court" appointment - (law) the act of disposing of property by virtue of the power of appointment; "she allocated part of the trust to her church by appointment" novation - (law) the replacement of one obligation by another by mutual agreement of both parties; usually the replacement of one of the original parties to a contract with the consent of the remaining party subrogation - (law) the act of substituting of one creditor for another disbarment - the act of expelling a lawyer from the practice of law chance-medley - an unpremeditated killing of a human being in self defense derogation - (law) the partial taking away of the effectiveness of a law; a partial repeal or abolition of a law; "any derogation of the common law is to be strictly construed" recission, rescission - (law) the act of rescinding; the cancellation of a contract and the return of the parties to the positions they would have had if the contract had not been made; "recission may be brought about by decree or by mutual consent" production - (law) the act of exhibiting in a court of law; "the appellate court demanded the production of all documents" practice of law, law - the learned profession that is mastered by graduate study in a law school and that is responsible for the judicial system; "he studied law at Yale" civil wrong, tort - (law) any wrongdoing for which an action for damages may be brought comparative negligence - (law) negligence allocated between the plaintiff and the defendant with a corresponding reduction in damages paid to the plaintiff concurrent negligence - (law) negligence of two of more persons acting independently; the plaintiff may sue both together or separately contributory negligence - (law) behavior by the plaintiff that contributes to the harm resulting from the defendant's negligence; "in common law any degree of contributory negligence would bar the plaintiff from collecting damages" criminal negligence, culpable negligence - (law) recklessly acting without reasonable caution and putting another person at risk of injury or death (or failing to do something with the same consequences) barratry - the offense of vexatiously persisting in inciting lawsuits and quarrels champerty - an unethical agreement between an attorney and client that the attorney would sue and pay the costs of the client's suit in return for a portion of the damages awarded; "soliciting personal injury cases may constitute champerty" criminal maintenance, maintenance - the unauthorized interference in a legal action by a person having no interest in it (as by helping one party with money or otherwise to continue the action) so as to obstruct justice or promote unnecessary litigation or unsettle the peace of the community; "unlike champerty, criminal maintenance does not necessarily involve personal profit" false pretence, false pretense - (law) an offense involving intent to defraud and false representation and obtaining property as a result of that misrepresentation resisting arrest - physical efforts to oppose a lawful arrest; the resistance is classified as assault and battery upon the person of the police officer attempting to make the arrest sedition - an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government sex crime, sex offense, sexual abuse, sexual assault - a statutory offense that provides that it is a crime to knowingly cause another person to engage in an unwanted sexual act by force or threat; "most states have replaced the common law definition of rape with statutes defining sexual assault" kidnapping, snatch - (law) the unlawful act of capturing and carrying away a person against their will and holding them in false imprisonment constructive possession - (law) having the power and intention to have and control property but without direct control or actual presence upon it |
| 2. |  law - legal document setting forth rules governing a particular kind of activity; "there is a law against kidnapping"anti-drug law - a law forbidding the sale or use of narcotic drugs blue law - a statute regulating work on Sundays blue sky law - a state law regulating the sale of securities in an attempt to control the sale of securities in fraudulent enterprises gag law - any law that limits freedom of the press homestead law - a law conferring privileges on owners of homesteads poor law - a law providing support for the poor Riot Act - a former English law requiring mobs to disperse after a magistrate reads the law to them prohibition - a law forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages; "in 1920 the 18th amendment to the Constitution established prohibition in the US" law, jurisprudence - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order" law, jurisprudence - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order" |
| 3. | law - a rule or body of rules of conduct inherent in human nature and essential to or binding upon human societydivine law - a law that is believed to come directly from God principle - a basic truth or law or assumption; "the principles of democracy" sound law - a law describing sound changes in the history of a language |
| 4. | law - a generalization that describes recurring facts or events in nature; "the laws of thermodynamics"all-or-none law - (neurophysiology) a nerve impulse resulting from a weak stimulus is just as strong as a nerve impulse resulting from a strong stimulus principle, rule - a rule or law concerning a natural phenomenon or the function of a complex system; "the principle of the conservation of mass"; "the principle of jet propulsion"; "the right-hand rule for inductive fields" Bernoulli's law, law of large numbers - (statistics) law stating that a large number of items taken at random from a population will (on the average) have the population statistics Benford's law - a law used by auditors to identify fictitious populations of numbers; applies to any population of numbers derived from other numbers; "Benford's law holds that 30% of the time the first non-zero digit of a derived number will be 1 and it will be 9 only 4.6% of the time" Bose-Einstein statistics - (physics) statistical law obeyed by a system of particles whose wave function is not changed when two particles are interchanged (the Pauli exclusion principle does not apply) Coulomb's Law - a fundamental principle of electrostatics; the force of attraction or repulsion between two charged particles is directly proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the distance between them; principle also holds for magnetic poles Dalton's law of partial pressures, law of partial pressures, Dalton's law - (chemistry and physics) law stating that the pressure exerted by a mixture of gases equals the sum of the partial pressures of the gases in the mixture; the pressure of a gas in a mixture equals the pressure it would exert if it occupied the same volume alone at the same temperature distribution law - (chemistry) the total energy in an assembly of molecules is not distributed equally but is distributed around an average value according to a statistical distribution equilibrium law, law of chemical equilibrium - (chemistry) the principle that (at chemical equilibrium) in a reversible reaction the ratio of the rate of the forward reaction to the rate of the reverse reaction is a constant for that reaction Fechner's law, Weber-Fechner law - (psychophysics) the concept that the magnitude of a subjective sensation increases proportional to the logarithm of the stimulus intensity; based on early work by E. H. Weber Fermi-Dirac statistics - (physics) law obeyed by a systems of particles whose wave function changes when two particles are interchanged (the Pauli exclusion principle applies) Henry's law - (chemistry) law formulated by the English chemist William Henry; the amount of a gas that will be absorbed by water increases as the gas pressure increases Hooke's law - (physics) the principle that (within the elastic limit) the stress applied to a solid is proportional to the strain produced Hubble law, Hubble's law - (astronomy) the generalization that the speed of recession of distant galaxies (the red shift) is proportional to their distance from the observer Kirchhoff's laws - (physics) two laws governing electric networks in which steady currents flow: the sum of all the currents at a point is zero and the sum of the voltage gains and drops around any closed circuit is zero law of averages - a law affirming that in the long run probabilities will determine performance law of diminishing returns - a law affirming that to continue after a certain level of performance has been reached will result in a decline in effectiveness law of effect - (psychology) the principle that behaviors are selected by their consequences; behavior having good consequences tends to be repeated whereas behavior that leads to bad consequences is not repeated |
| 5. | law - the branch of philosophy concerned with the law and the principles that lead courts to make the decisions they dophilosophy - the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics contract law - that branch of jurisprudence that studies the rights and obligations of parties entering into contracts corporation law - that branch of jurisprudence that studies the laws governing corporations matrimonial law - that branch of jurisprudence that studies the laws governing matrimony patent law - that branch of jurisprudence that studies the laws governing patents |
| 6. | law - the learned profession that is mastered by graduate study in a law school and that is responsible for the judicial system; "he studied law at Yale"learned profession - one of the three professions traditionally believed to require advanced learning and high principles law, jurisprudence - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order" traverse, deny - deny formally (an allegation of fact by the opposing party) in a legal suit disbar - remove from the bar; expel from the practice of law by official action; "The corrupt lawyer was disbarred" |
| 7. |  law - the force of policemen and officers; "the law came looking for him"personnel, force - group of people willing to obey orders; "a public force is necessary to give security to the rights of citizens" Mutawa, Mutawa'een - religious police in Saudi Arabia whose duty is to ensure strict adherence to established codes of conduct; offenders may be detained indefinitely; foreigners are not excluded secret police - a police force that operates in secrecy (usually against persons suspected of treason or sedition) Schutzstaffel, SS - special police force in Nazi Germany founded as a personal bodyguard for Adolf Hitler in 1925; the SS administered the concentration camps |
law noun 2.
statute,
act,
bill,
rule,
demand,
order,
command,
code,
regulation,
resolution,
decree,
canon,
covenant,
ordinance,
commandment,
enactment,
edict 
Translations
law [lɔː] n →
ley f;
law [lɔː] n →
loi f (=
science);
droit m;
law [lɔː] n →
Recht nt (=
a rule) [
also of nature, science] →
Gesetz nt (=
professions connected with law);
Rechtswesen nt;
law [lɔː] n →
legge f;
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common law (2)
