[law] 
| 1. | the principles and regulations established in a community by some authority and applicable to its people, whether in the form of legislation or of custom and policies recognized and enforced by judicial decision. |
| 2. | any written or positive rule or collection of rules prescribed under the authority of the state or nation, as by the people in its constitution. Compare bylaw, statute law. |
| 3. | the controlling influence of such rules; the condition of society brought about by their observance: maintaining law and order. |
| 4. | a system or collection of such rules. |
| 5. | the department of knowledge concerned with these rules; jurisprudence: to study law. |
| 6. | the body of such rules concerned with a particular subject or derived from a particular source: commercial law. |
| 7. | an act of the supreme legislative body of a state or nation, as distinguished from the constitution. |
| 8. | the principles applied in the courts of common law, as distinguished from equity. |
| 9. | the profession that deals with law and legal procedure: to practice law. |
| 10. | legal action; litigation: to go to law. |
| 11. | a person, group, or agency acting officially to enforce the law: The law arrived at the scene soon after the alarm went off. |
| 12. | any rule or injunction that must be obeyed: Having a nourishing breakfast was an absolute law in our household. |
| 13. | a rule or principle of proper conduct sanctioned by conscience, concepts of natural justice, or the will of a deity: a moral law. |
| 14. | a rule or manner of behavior that is instinctive or spontaneous: the law of self-preservation. |
| 15. | (in philosophy, science, etc.)
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| 16. | a principle based on the predictable consequences of an act, condition, etc.: the law of supply and demand. |
| 17. | a rule, principle, or convention regarded as governing the structure or the relationship of an element in the structure of something, as of a language or work of art: the laws of playwriting; the laws of grammar. |
| 18. | a commandment or a revelation from God. |
| 19. | (sometimes initial capital letter ) a divinely appointed order or system. |
| 20. | the Law. Law of Moses. |
| 21. | the preceptive part of the Bible, esp. of the New Testament, in contradistinction to its promises: the law of Christ. |
| 22. | British Sports. an allowance of time or distance given a quarry or competitor in a race, as the head start given a fox before the hounds are set after it. |
| 23. | Chiefly Dialect. to sue or prosecute. |
| 24. | British. (formerly) to expeditate (an animal). |
| 25. | be a law to or unto oneself, to follow one's own inclinations, rules of behavior, etc.; act independently or unconventionally, esp. without regard for established mores. |
| 26. | lay down the law,
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| 27. | take the law into one's own hands, to administer justice as one sees fit without recourse to the usual law enforcement or legal processes: The townspeople took the law into their own hands before the sheriff took action. |
| law (lô) n.
To go to law; litigate. [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 (lô)
n.
A rule of conduct or procedure established by custom, agreement, or authority.
A set of rules or principles for a specific area of a legal system.
A piece of enacted legislation.
A formulation describing a relationship observed to be invariable between or among phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met.
A generalization based on consistent experience or results.
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