plural laws

1

a(1)

**:**a binding custom or practice of a community

**:**a rule of conduct or action prescribed (see prescribe sense 1a) or formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority

(2)

**:**the whole body of such customs, practices, or rules

The courts exist to uphold, interpret, and apply the law.

(3)

b(1)

**:**the control brought about by the existence or enforcement of such law

The Indian government is believed to have detained thousands of other people last year … . The government said the move, decried by critics as draconian, was necessary to maintain law and public order in the region.—

see also law and order
*BBC.com*
(2)

**:**the action of laws considered as a means of redressing wrongs

also

**:**litigationdeveloped the habit of going to law over the slightest provocation —H. A. Overstreet

(3)

**:**the agency of or an agent of established law

When he saw that the fighting was escalating, he called in the law.

c

**:**a rule or order that it is advisable or obligatory to observe

a law of self-preservation

d

**:**something compatible with or enforceable by established law

The decrees were judged not to be law and were therefore rescinded.

2

a

often capitalized

**:**the revelation of the will of God set forth in the Old Testament
b

capitalized

**:**the first part of the Jewish scriptures**:**pentateuch, torah see Bible Table3

**:**a rule of construction or procedure

the laws of poetry

4

**:**the whole body of laws relating to one subject

criminal law

probate law

5

a

**:**the legal profession

studied for a career in law

b

**:**law as a department of knowledge

**:**jurisprudence

c

**:**legal knowledge

a man with much history but little law

6

a

**:**a statement of an order or relation of phenomena that so far as is known is invariable under the given conditions

a law of thermodynamics

Boyle's law

b

**:**a general relation proved or assumed to hold between mathematical or logical expressions

lawed; lawing; laws

chiefly dialectal

**:**to sue or prosecute at lawLove words? Need even more definitions?

Merriam-Webster unabridged
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