<B>law and order,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> the support or use of stringent measures to suppress crime and violence. <BR> <I>Ex. The current emphasis on law and order distresses me because the phrase appears to mean only the stringent regulation of the disadvantaged and rebellious (R. Hobart Ellis, Jr.).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawandorder">
<B>law-and-order, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> supporting or advocating stringent measures to suppress crime and violence, including rioting and other forms of violent demonstrations. <BR> <I>Ex. [He] was best known for his views on the handling of criminal prosecutions, which had often caused him to be classified as a "law-and-order" judge (C. Herman Pritchett).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawbook">
<B>lawbook, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a book relating to law, or containing laws or reports of cases. </DL>
<A NAME="lawbreaker">
<B>lawbreaker, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a person who breaks the law. <BR> <I>Ex. All too many lawbreakers and potential lawbreakers are persuaded that they can steal a car ... and get away with it, or with worse crimes (New York Times).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawbreaking">
<B>lawbreaking, </B>noun, adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> a breaking of the law. <DD><I>adj. </I> breaking the law. <BR> <I>Ex. a lawbreaking offense.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawclerk">
<B>law clerk,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> an assistant to a judge or lawyer. <BR> <I>Ex. Taking a job as a law clerk in Chicago ... he saved enough money to start his own law office (Wall Street Journal).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawcourt">
<B>law court,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a place where justice is administered; court of law. </DL>
<A NAME="lawday">
<B>law day,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a day appointed for the discharge of a bond. <BR> <I>Ex. A person who borrows money with a mortgage promises to repay it by law day.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawday">
<B>Law Day,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (U.S.) May 1, celebrated to emphasize the importance of law in American life. </DL>
<A NAME="lawfrench">
<B>law French,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a form of Anglo-French in legal use in England from the time of William the Conqueror to that of Edward III or later, and still surviving in some phrases and expressions. </DL>
<A NAME="lawful">
<B>lawful, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>according to law; done as the law directs. <BR> <I>Ex. a lawful trial, a lawful arrest.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>allowed by law; rightful. <BR> <I>Ex. lawful demands.</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>law-abiding. <BR> <I>Ex. a lawful man.</I> adv. <B>lawfully.</B> noun <B>lawfulness.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="lawgiver">
<B>lawgiver, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a person who prepares and puts into effect a system of laws for a people; legislator; lawmaker. </DL>
<A NAME="lawhand">
<B>law-hand, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the style of handwriting in former times customarily used in legal documents. <BR> <I>Ex. an immense desert of law-hand and parchments (Dickens).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawine">
<B>Lawine, </B>noun, pl. <B>-nen,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (German.) an avalanche. </DL>
<A NAME="lawless">
<B>lawless, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>paying no attention to the law; breaking the law. <BR> <I>Ex. A thief leads a lawless life.</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>having no laws. <BR> <I>Ex. In pioneer days much of the West was a lawless wilderness.</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>hard to control; disorderly; unruly. <BR> <I>Ex. Her lawless hair was caught in a net (Bret Harte).</I> (SYN) uncontrolled, ungovernable. adv. <B>lawlessly.</B> noun <B>lawlessness.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="lawlord">
<B>law lord,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> one of the members of the House of Lords qualified to take part in its judicial proceedings. <BR> <I>Ex. He's a law lord--a member of our highest appeals court, and thus automatically a life peer (Norman Kotker).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawmaker">
<B>lawmaker, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a person who helps to make laws of a country; member of a legislature or parliament; legislator; lawgiver. <BR> <I>Ex. Congressmen are lawmakers.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawmaking">
<B>lawmaking, </B>adjective, noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>adj. </I> having the duty and power of making laws; legislative. <BR> <I>Ex. Congress is a lawmaking body.</I> <DD><I>noun </I> the act or process of making laws; legislation. </DL>
<A NAME="lawman">
<B>lawman, </B>noun, pl. <B>-men.</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a law enforcement officer. </DL>
<A NAME="lawmerchant">
<B>law merchant,</B> pl. <B>laws merchant.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>the body of principles and rules for the regulation of commerce, drawn chiefly from the customs of merchants; mercantile law. <DD><B> 2. </B>(formerly) the customs that governed legal cases originating in trade or commerce. </DL>
<A NAME="lawn">
<B>lawn</B> (1), noun, verb.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>land covered with grass kept closely cut, especially near or around a house. <DD><B> 2. </B>(Archaic.) an open space between woods; glade. <DD><I>v.t. </I> to turn (land) into lawn. <BR> <I>Ex. The grounds of the estate are beautifully lawned.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawn">
<B>lawn</B> (2), noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a thin, sheer linen or cotton cloth, resembling cambric. <BR> <I>Ex. A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn (Alexander Pope).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B><B>=lawn sleeves.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="lawnbowling">
<B>lawn bowling,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> the game of bowls. </DL>
<A NAME="lawnchair">
<B>lawn chair,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a chair for use outdoors. </DL>
<A NAME="lawnmower">
<B>lawn mower,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a machine with revolving blades for cutting the grass on a lawn. </DL>
<A NAME="lawnparty">
<B>lawn party,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (U.S.) an informal gathering held on the lawn or in the garden of a house; garden party. </DL>
<A NAME="lawnsleeves">
<B>lawn sleeves,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>the sleeves of lawn characterizing the dress of an Anglican bishop. <DD><B> 2a. </B>the position of a bishop. <DD><B> b. </B>a bishop or bishops. </DL>
<A NAME="lawntennis">
<B>lawn tennis,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a game in which a ball is hit back and forth with a racket over a low net. It is played on an open court, sometimes of grass. The game of tennis, as commonly played today, is lawn tennis. </DL>
<A NAME="lawny">
<B>lawny</B> (1), adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> like a lawn; level and covered with smooth turf. <BR> <I>Ex. lawny slopes.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawny">
<B>lawny</B> (2), adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> made of or like the cloth lawn. </DL>
<A NAME="lawofaverages">
<B>law of averages,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>(Statistics.) <B>=law of large numbers.</B> <DD><B> 2. </B>the usual way events turn out or are determined or the customary way people act. <BR> <I>Ex. The law of averages can generally be counted upon to catch up with the cheat eventually.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawofcontradiction">
<B>law of contradiction,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Logic.) the law that states that a thing cannot be and not be at the same time or that no statement can be both true and false. </DL>
<A NAME="lawofdiminishingreturns">
<B>law of diminishing returns,</B> =diminishing returns.</DL>
<A NAME="lawofgravitation">
<B>law of gravitation,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Physics.) statement of the principle that two bodies attract each other with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. </DL>
<A NAME="lawoflargenumbers">
<B>law of large numbers,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Statistics.) the theorem that a large number of items chosen at random from a population are bound, on the average, to have the characteristics of the population. </DL>
<A NAME="lawofmoses">
<B>law of Moses,</B> =Pentateuch.</DL>
<A NAME="lawofnations">
<B>law of nations,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B><B>=international law.</B> <DD><B> 2. </B>(in ancient Roman use) the rules common to the law of all nations. </DL>
<A NAME="lawofparsimony">
<B>law of parsimony,</B> =Occam's Razor.</DL>
<A NAME="lawofthejungle">
<B>law of the jungle,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> circumstance that prescribes certain primitive, harsh, or otherwise distasteful conduct to survive. <BR> <I>Ex. righteously condemned it as "the law of the jungle" under which "the strong swallow the weak" (Wall Street Journal).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawoftheland">
<B>law of the land,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> law, especially law or accepted rules prevailing in a certain country, profession, or business. <BR> <I>Ex. projections of a moral principle to which the Supreme Court has given increasing weight as the law of the land (New York Times).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="lawofthemedesandpersians">
<B>law of the Medes and Persians,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a law that cannot be changed; something unalterable (with allusion to Daniel 6:12). </DL>
<A NAME="lawofthesea">
<B>law of the sea,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>accepted customs of conduct for behavior of seamen or actions of ships' masters and owners. <DD><B> 2. </B>maritime law, especially international maritime law. <BR> <I>Ex. The International Convention on the Law of the Sea (New York Times).</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>what is dictated as necessary to survive at sea. </DL>
<A NAME="lawrencian">
<B>Lawrencian, </B>adjective. =Lawrentian.</DL>
<A NAME="lawrencium">
<B>lawrencium, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a radioactive, metallic chemical element of the actinide series. Lawrencium is short-lived and artificially produced by bombarding californium with boron ions. </DL>
<A NAME="lawrentian">
<B>Lawrentian, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> of or characteristic of either the English novelist and poet D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930) or his writings, or the English adventurer T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935) or his writings or adventures. </DL>
<A NAME="lawsofmanu">
<B>Laws of Manu,</B> =Code of Manu.</DL>
<A NAME="lawsoncriterion">
<B>Lawson criterion,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Nuclear Physics.) a criterion that establishes the point at which a fusion reaction becomes self-sustaining, formulated by British physicist J. D. Lawson in the 1960's. </DL>
<A NAME="lawsoncypress">
<B>Lawson cypress,</B> =Port Orford cedar.</DL>
<A NAME="lawsuit">
<B>lawsuit, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a case in a law court started by one person to claim something from another; application to a court by one person to compel another to do him justice. </DL>
<A NAME="lawyer">
<B>lawyer, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a person who knows the laws and gives advice about matters of the law or acts for another person in a law court. <DD><B> 2. </B>a scribe; expounder of the Mosaic Law (in the New Testament, Luke 10:25). <DD><B> 3. </B><B>=burbot.</B> <DD><B> 4. </B>(Australian Dialect.) a long bramble. </DL>
