Law

Law, law, n. a rule of action established by authority: statute: the rules of a community or state: a rule or principle of science or art: the whole jurisprudence or the science of law: established usage: that which is lawful: the whole body of persons connected professionally with the law: litigation: a theoretical principle educed from practice or observation: a statement or formula expressing the constant order of certain phenomena: (theol.) the Mosaic code or the books containing it.—v.t. (coll.) to give law to, determine.—v.i. (obs.) to go to law.—adj. Law′-abid′ing, obedient to the law.—ns. Law-bind′ing; Law′-book, a book treating of law or law cases; Law′-break′er, one who violates a law; Law′-burr′ows (Scots law), a writ requiring a person to give security against doing violence to another; Law′-calf, a book-binding in smooth, pale-brown calf; Law′-day, a day of open court.—adj. Law′ful, allowed by law: rightful.—adv. Law′fully.—ns. Law′fulness; Law′giver, one who enacts laws: a legislator.—adj. Law′giving, legislating.—n. Law′ing, going to law: litigation: (obs.) the practice of cutting off the claws and balls of a dog's forefeet to hinder it from hunting: (Scot.) a reckoning at a public-house, a tavern bill.—adj. Law′less.—adv. Law′lessly.—ns. Law′lessness; Law′-list, an annual publication containing all information regarding the administration of law and the legal profession; Law′-lord, a peer in parliament who holds or has held high legal office: in Scotland, a judge of the Court of Session; Law′-mak′er, a lawgiver; Law′-man, one of a select body with magisterial powers in some of the Danish towns of early England; Law′-mer′chant, a term applied to the customs which have grown up among merchants in reference to mercantile documents and business; Law′-mong′er, a low pettifogging lawyer; Law′-stā′tioner, a stationer who sells parchment and other articles needed by lawyers; Law′suit, a suit or process in law; Law′-writ′er, a writer on law: a copier or engrosser of legal papers; Law′yer, a practitioner in the law: (N.T.) an interpreter of the Mosaic Law: the stem of a brier.—Law Latin, Latin as used in law and legal documents, being a mixture of Latin with Old French and Latinised English words; Law of nations, now international law, originally applied to those ethical principles regarded as obligatory on all communities; Law of nature (see Nature); Law of the land, the established law of a country; Laws of association (see Association); Laws of motion (see Motion); Lawful day, one on which business may be legally done—not a Sunday or a public holiday.—Boyle's (erroneously called Mariotte's) law (physics), in gases, the law that, for a given quantity at a given temperature, the pressure varies inversely as the volume—discovered by Robert Boyle in 1662, and treated in a book by Mariotte in 1679; Brehon law (see Brehon); Canon law (see Canon); Case law, law established by judicial decision in particular cases, in contradistinction to statute law; Common law (see Common); Criminal law, the law which relates to crimes and their punishment; Crown law, that part of the common law of England which is applicable to criminal matters; Customary law (see Consuetudinary); Empirical law, a law induced from observation or experiment, and though valid for the particular instances observed, not to be relied on beyond the conditions on which it rests; Federal law, law prescribed by the supreme power of the United States, as opposed to state law; Forest law, the code of law which was drawn up to preserve the forests, &c., forming the special property of the English kings; Gresham's law (polit. econ.), the law that of two forms of currency the inferior or more depreciated tends to drive the other from circulation, owing to the hoarding and exportation of the better form; Grimm's law (philol.), the law formulating certain changes or differences which the mute consonants exhibit in corresponding words in the Teutonic branches of the Aryan family of languages—stated by Jacob Grimm (1785-1863); International law (see International); Judiciary law, that part of the law which has its source in the decisions and adjudications of the courts; Kepler's laws, three laws of planetary motion discovered by Johann Kepler (1571-1630)—viz. (1) the orbits of the planets are ellipses with the sun at one focus; (2) the areas described by their radii vectores in equal times are equal; (3) the squares of their periodic times vary as the cubes of their mean distances from the sun; Lynch law (see Lynch); Maine law, a prohibitory liquor law passed by the legislature of Maine State, U.S.A., in 1851; Maritime, Martial, Mercantile, Military law (see the adjs.); May laws, several Prussian enactments (1873-74) directed to control the action of the Church, and limit its interference in civil matters, largely modified in 1887—often called Falk laws, from the introducer; Moral law, that portion of the Old Testament which relates to moral principles, especially the ten commandments; Mosaic, Municipal, Natural law (see the adjs.); Ohm's law, the basis of electrical measurements, established in 1827 by Ohm (1787-1854), that the resistance of a conductor is measured by the ratio of the electromotive force between its two ends to the current flowing through it; Poor-law, -laws, laws providing for the support of paupers at the public expense; Positive law, law owing its force to human sanction as opposed to divine law; Private law (see Private); Roman law, the system of law developed by the ancient Romans, and often termed the civil law (q.v.); Salic law (see Salian); Statute law (see Statute); Sumptuary law (see Sumptuary); Verner's law (philol.), a law stated by Karl Verner in 1875, showing the effect of the position of accent in the shifting of the original Aryan mute consonants, and s, into Low German, and explaining the most important anomalies in the application of Grimm's law; Written law, statute law as distinguished from the common law.—Have the law of (coll.), to enforce the law against; Lay down the law, to state authoritatively or dictatorially. [M. E. lawe—A.S. lagu, from licgan, to lie; Ice. lōg.]