PERMANENT SOURCE RECORD
ALL SOURCES ↗BIBLIOGRAPHIC IDENTITYmw-law
SOURCE
RECORD.
One work. Every claim that depends on it. No citation without a consequence you can inspect.
12 PUBLIC LINKS INTO THE GRAPH.
This count excludes duplicate dossier-path citations. Open the claims below to see exactly how the source is used.
historical dictionarymw-law
Law — Word History
- AUTHOR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster Editors
- YEAR
- 2026
- PUBLISHER
- Merriam-Webster
- DOI
- Not recorded
- SOURCE TYPE
- historical dictionary
- EXTERNAL RECORD
- OPEN ORIGINAL ↗
012
CONTRARIAN TRUTH CLAIMS
RANKED REVEALS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
RANK 183GRADE A−supports
Law and legal are semantic twins, not direct relatives.
Law comes from Scandinavian “what is laid down”; legal comes from Latin lēx. Only a possible, explicitly uncertain prehistoric route may reconnect them.
*legh-
*legh- → *lagam → lǫg / lög; lag → lagu → lawe / laue → law
Word History: Old English lagu, of Scandinavian originDocuments law's immediate ancestry.
law dossier ↗truth record ↗83UNVEILING
RANK 191GRADE Asupports
Legal is not descended from English law.
The meanings meet; the family trees do not. legal is Latin, while law is Germanic and Scandinavian.
*leǵ-
*leǵ- → lēx → lēgālis → legal → legal
Word HistoryTraces English law through its separate Germanic and Scandinavian history.
legal dossier ↗truth record ↗82UNVEILING
022
SCHOLARLY DISAGREEMENT
DISPUTE POSITIONS THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
resolvedsupportsestablished
Is English law the source of legal—or vice versa?
No. Law comes through Old English lagu from Scandinavian; legal comes through Anglo-French and Latin legalis from lēx. Their shared modern subject matter is not an immediate genealogical relationship.
Word History: Old English lagu, of Scandinavian originDocuments law's immediate Scandinavian and Germanic route.
resolvedsupportsestablished
Is legal descended from English law?
No. legal is borrowed through Anglo-French from Latin lēgālis and lēx; English law has a separate Germanic and Scandinavian ancestry.
Word HistoryTraces English law through a separate Germanic and Scandinavian history.
033
CANONICAL RELATIONSHIP CLAIMS
EDGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
EDGE 464supportsestablished
law → lawe / laue
Present-Day English → Middle English · historical continuation
- 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.
- SCHOLAR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster · Etymonline editors
Word History: Middle English from Old English lagu; First Known UseDocuments the inherited English headword, Scandinavian source, and early horizon.
EDGE 465supportsestablished
lawe / laue → lagu
Middle English → Old English · inheritance
- SOUND
- Old English lagu continues into Middle English with loss of final unstressed -u and spelling variation including laue and lawe.
- MEANING
- Ordinance, rule, and legal order remain central.
- SCHOLAR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster · Etymonline · UT LRC editors
Word History: Old English laguDocuments the Old English parent.
EDGE 466supportsestablished
lagu → lǫg / lög; lag
Old English → Old Norse · borrowing
- SOUND
- Old English adapts a Scandinavian law-word represented by Old Norse lǫg / lög and lag.
- MEANING
- What is laid down or put in order becomes a prescribed rule and legal institution.
- SCHOLAR / EDITOR
- Merriam-Webster · Etymonline editors
Word History: Old English lagu, of Scandinavian origin; Old Norse lǫgDirectly identifies the borrowing direction and Old Norse comparison.
041
LEXICAL ATTESTATIONS
WITNESSES REPORTED BY THIS SOURCE
lawSOURCE-REPORTED
lagu
Merriam-Webster source-reported Old English record
OPEN WITNESS 122 ↗051
COMPARATIVE EVIDENCE
COGNATES, DESCENDANTS, AND RELATIVES
law
Englishsemantic neighbor with unrelated ancestry
062
GEOGRAPHIC AND TEMPORAL CLAIMS
JOURNEY STAGES THAT CITE THIS SOURCE
stage 3supports
Anglo-Saxon England
Reports Old English lagu, Scandinavian origin, and use before the twelfth century.
Word History and First Known Use · regionalstage 4supports
Global English
Documents the inherited English word and its modern legal, institutional, and scientific senses.
Definitions and Word History · global071
NON-GENEALOGICAL CONNECTIONS
HISTORICAL CONTEXT, KEPT SEPARATE
semantic twins disputed deep convergencesupports
SAME SUBJECT, DIFFERENT WORD HISTORIES
Law reaches Old English lagu and Old Norse lög in the *legh- “lie, lay” family. Legal reaches Latin lēx, usually compared with *leǵ- “gather.” A published alternative allows lēx to come from *legh-, but explicitly calls that route uncertain.
Merriam-Webster · American Heritage Dictionary editors · proposed082
WORD-FAMILY REUSE
DOSSIERS THAT DEPEND ON THIS SOURCE
3 entry-scoped citations map reviewed dossier paths onto the canonical claims above.