law – English noun declension

English noun forms of law

Noun: law
Singularlaw
Plurallaws

Sample Sentences

  • Not unnaturally, "Auntie" took this communication in bad part.[…]Next day she[…]tried to recover her ward by the hair of the head. Then, thwarted, the wretched creature went to the police for help; she was versed in the law, and perhaps had spared no pains to keep on good terms with the local constabulary. [1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLIV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 361:]
  • Here one comes upon an all-important English trait: the respect for constitutionalism and legality, the belief in "the law" as something above the State and above the individual, something which is cruel and stupid, of course, but at any rate incorruptible. It is not that anyone imagines the law to be just. Everyone knows that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor. But no one accepts the implications of this, everyone takes it for granted that the law, such as it is, will be respected, and feels a sense of outrage when it is not. [1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I:]
  • The courts interpret the law but should not make it.
  • In theory, entrapment is against the law.
  • property law
  • commercial hunting and fishing law
  • There is a law against importing wallabies.
  • A new law forbids driving on that road.
  • The court ruled that the executive order was not law and nullified it.
  • As a political system democracy seems to me extraordinarily foolish,[…]. My servant is, so far as I am concerned, welcome to as many votes as he can get.[…]I do not suppose that it matters much in reality whether laws are made by dukes or cornerboys, but I like, as far as possible, to associate with gentlemen in private life. [1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC:]
  • "Do unto others as you wish them to do unto you" is a good law to follow.
  • the law of self-preservation
  • the laws of playwriting and poetry
  • The normal pronoun to use with "spirit" would be "it." But Jesus breaks the law of grammar and says not "when it," but "when he." [1997, Derek Prince, If you Want God's Best, →ISBN:]
  • Observing pi is easier than studying physical phenomena, because you can prove things in mathematics, whereas you can't prove anything in physics. And, unfortunately, the laws of physics change once every generation. [1992 March 2, Richard Preston, “The Mountains of Pi”, in The New Yorker:]
  • the laws of thermodynamics
  • Newton's third law of motion states that to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.
  • This is one of several laws derived from his general theory expounded in the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
  • Mathematical laws can be proved purely through mathematics, without scientific experimentation.
  • the law of scarcity
  • the law of supply and demand
  • The sum total of their acts forms a pattern of diachronic historical laws, describing the transition from one social system to the next, and also functional laws showing the interrelation of such features as technology, forms of property, class barriers, state institutions, and ideology. [1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: powstanie (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 341:]
  • Grimm's law
  • Dahl's law
  • They worked to maintain law and order.
  • It was a territory without law, marked by violence.
  • Here comes the law — run!
  • then the law arrived on the scene
  • That was Joe's first confrontation with "The Law" / Naturally, we were easy on him / One of our friendly counsellors gave him a donut / And told him to stick closer / To church-oriented social activities [1979, Frank Zappa, “Joe's Garage”:]
  • He is studying for a career in law.
  • She has practiced law in New York for twenty years.
  • She went to university to study law.
  • They were quick to go to law.
  • After a few minutes' waiting, two well-known runners, chosen for the hares, buckled on the four bags filled with scent, compared their watches with those of young Brooke and Thome, and started off at a long, slinging trot across the fields in the direction of Barby. Then the hounds clustered round Thome, who explained shortly, "They're to have six minutes' law." [1889, Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, page 150:]
  • normal law; alternate law; direct law
  • As to the depriving the defendant of waging his law, it was thought, the practice merited discouragement, as a temptation to perjury. [1793, Richard Wooddeson, A Systematical View of the Laws of England, page 169:]
  • But, before the defendant takes the oath, the plaintiff is called by the crier thrice; and if he do not appear he becomes nonsuited, and then the defendant goes quit without taking his oath; and if he appear, and the defendant swear that he owes the plaintiff nothing, and the compurgators give it upon oath, that they believe he swears true, the plaintiff is barred for ever; for when a person has waged his law, it is as much as if a verdict had passed against the plaintiff; if the plaintiff do not appear to hear the defendant perform his law, so that he is nonsuit, he is not barred, but may bring a new action. [1846, Matthew Bacon, Sir Henry Gwilliam, Charles Edward Dodd, A New Abridgment of the Law with Large Additions and Corrections:]
  • A withdrawal from a wager of law was an admission of the point as to which the law was waged; the defaulter also incurred a fine (i, 297). [2013, William Paley Baildon, Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield: Volume 2, 1297 to 1309, →ISBN, page ix:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *legʰ-der.
3. Proto-Germanic *lagą
4. Old Norse lag
5. Old Norse lǫgbor.
6. Old English lagu
7. Middle English lawe
8. English law
9. From Middle English lawe, laȝe, from Old English lagu (“law”), borrowed from Old Norse lǫg (“law”, literally “things laid down or firmly established”), originally the plural of lag (“layer, stratum, a laying in order, measure, stroke”), from Proto-Germanic *lagą (“that which is laid down”), from Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie”). Cognate with Scots law (“law”), Icelandic lög (“things laid down, law”), Faroese lóg (“law”), Norwegian lov (“law”), Swedish lag (“law”), Danish lov (“law”), Finnish laki (“law”). Compare typologically distant cognate Russian уложе́ние (uložénije). Displaced native Old English ǣ and ġesetnes. More at lay.
10. Not related to legal, nor to French loi, Spanish ley, all of which ultimately derive from Latin lēx, from Proto-Indo-European *leǵ- (“to gather”). See: Middle English Nouns 'lawe', Old English Nouns 'lagu', Old Norse Nouns 'lǫg', Icelandic Nouns 'lög', Faroese Nouns 'lóg', Swedish Nouns 'lag', Danish Nouns 'lov', Finnish Nouns 'laki'.

Verbs referencing "law"

Swedish Nouns lag, Danish Nouns lav, Danish Nouns lov, English Nouns paenultima law.