law
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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3 characters
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English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "law", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "law" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "law" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
law is aEnglishnoun. It means: The body of binding rules and regulations, customs, and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities. Pronounced /lɔː/. It ranks #329 in English word frequency. Often confused with le and li.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | law |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lɔː/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #329 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for law is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɔː/. Corpus data places it at rank #329 in overall English word frequency, putting it firmly in the everyday core of the language.Wiktionary records 20 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for law in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "le", "li", "Lt", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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 … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is law, spelled L-A-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The body of binding rules and regulations, customs, and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.
- 2The body of binding rules and regulations, customs, and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.
- 3The body of binding rules and regulations, customs, and standards established in a community by its legislative and judicial authorities.
- 4A binding regulation or custom established in a community in this way.
- 5A rule, such as:
- 6A rule, such as:
- 7A rule, such as:
- 8A rule, such as:
- 9A rule, such as:
- 10A rule, such as:
- 11A rule, such as:
- 12The control and order brought about by the observance of such rules.
- 13A person or group that act(s) with authority to uphold such rules and order (for example, one or more police officers).
- 14The profession that deals with such rules (as lawyers, judges, police officers, etc).
- 15Jurisprudence, the field of knowledge which encompasses these rules.
- 16Litigation; legal action (as a means of maintaining or restoring order, redressing wrongs, etc).
- 17An allowance of distance or time (a head start) given to a weaker (human or animal) competitor in a race, to make the race more fair.
- 18A mode of operation of the flight controls of a fly-by-wire aircraft.
- 19One of two metaphysical forces ruling the world in some fantasy settings, also called order, and opposed to chaos.
- 20An oath sworn before a court, especially disclaiming a debt. (Chiefly in the phrases "wager of law", "wage one's law", "perform one's law", "lose one's law".)
Etymology
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. 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”).
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #329 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: