NODE / 0497attestedPresent-Day English
law
PRONUNCIATION /lɔː/
binding rule, body of rules, or regular principle
- DATE
- Middle English continuation–today
- SENSE
- binding rule
- FAMILY
- Indo-European / Germanic
- CANONICAL KEY
- node:1:law:attested:sense:binding-rule
The modern spelling continues the Scandinavian loan already present in Old English.
01ANCESTRAL EDGES
ROOT OF THIS ROOT
GO DEEPERhistorical continuationestablished
Middle English · Middle English · binding rulelawe / laue
law, ordinance, or body of rules
- SOUND
- Middle English lawe / laue stabilizes as law while later English vowel history produces the modern pronunciation.
- MEANING
- The inherited legal-rule sense expands to bodies of law, professions, and regular principles in science.
- CHRONOLOGY
- Modern spelling postdates the source-reported Old and Middle English forms.
- SCHOLAR
- Merriam-Webster · Etymonline editors
- CONFIDENCE
- established
02DIRECT DESCENDANT EDGES
THE NEXT HISTORICAL STEP
No reviewed descendants currently reuse this node. Absence describes the graph, not the entire history of the form.
03TRANSITIVE DESCENDANT CLOSURE
EVERY REVIEWED BRANCH FROM HERE
This is the complete downstream closure currently supported by the canonical graph. Every displayed step is a real reviewed edge with its own sound claim, meaning claim, scholar, confidence, and citations.
- UNIQUE DESCENDANT NODES
- 0
- REVIEWED EDGES
- 0
- DEEPEST PATH
- 0
- MODERN DOSSIERS REACHED
- 0
No downstream edge has cleared review for this node. This is a graph-coverage statement, not a claim that the historical form produced nothing.
“Every” means every descendant in the reviewed SET-U graph. It does not convert missing scholarship or missing ingestion into a claim of historical completeness. The coverage ledger remains the honest denominator.
04RECORDED EVIDENCE
ATTESTATIONS / FIRST KNOWN USE
NO RECORDED WITNESS ATTACHED.The reviewed graph does not yet attach a source-reported or directly inspected witness to this canonical form.
05EDITORIAL REUSE
WORD DOSSIERS USING THIS NODE