Let her have needful, but not lavish, means.
Shak.
Syn. -- Profuse; prodigal; wasteful; extravagant; exuberant;
immoderate. See Profuse.
Lav"ish, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Lavished (-sht); p. pr. & vb. n.
Lavishing.] To expend or bestow with profusion; to use with
prodigality; to squander; as, to lavish money or praise.
Lav"ish*er (-r), n. One who lavishes.
Lav"ish*ly, adv. In a lavish manner.
Lav"ish*ment (-ment), n. The act of lavishing.
Lav"ish*ness, n. The quality or state of being lavish.
||La*vœ"si*um (?), n. [NL., fr. Lavoisier, the celebrated French
||chemist.] (Chem.) A supposed new metallic element. It is said to have
||been discovered in pyrites, and some other minerals, and to be of a
||silver-white color, and malleable.
||
{ La*volt" (?), La*vol"ta (?), } n. [It. la volta the turn, turning,
whirl. Cf. Volt of a horse, Volta.] An old dance, for two persons,
being a kind of waltz, in which the woman made a high spring or bound.
Shak.
La*vol`ta*teer" (?), n. A dancer of the lavolta.
Lav"our (?), n. A laver. [Obs.] Chaucer.
La"vrock (?), n. Same as Laverock.
Law (l), n. [OE. lawe, laghe, AS. lagu, from the root of E. lie: akin
to OS. lag, Icel. lög, Sw. lag, Dan. lov; cf. L. lex, E. legal. A law
is that which is laid, set, or fixed; like statute, fr. L. statuere to
make to stand. See Lie to be prostrate.] 1. In general, a rule of being
or of conduct, established by an authority able to enforce its will; a
controlling regulation; the mode or order according to which an agent
or a power acts.
A law may be universal or particular, written or unwritten, published
or secret. From the nature of the highest laws a degree of permanency
or stability is always implied; but the power which makes a law, or a
superior power, may annul or change it.
These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the Lord made.
Lev. xxvi. 46.
The law of thy God, and the law of the King.
Ezra vii. 26.
As if they would confine the Interminable . . . Who made our laws
to bind us, not himself.
Milton.
His mind his kingdom, and his will his law.
Cowper.
2. In morals: The will of God as the rule for the disposition and
conduct of all responsible beings toward him and toward each other; a
rule of living, conformable to righteousness; the rule of action as
obligatory on the conscience or moral nature.
3. The Jewish or Mosaic code, and that part of Scripture where it is
written, in distinction from the gospel; hence, also, the Old
Testament.
What things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under
the law . . . But now the righteousness of God without the law is
manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
Rom. iii. 19, 21.
4. In human government: (a) An organic rule, as a constitution or
charter, establishing and defining the conditions of the existence of a
state or other organized community. (b) Any edict, decree, order,
ordinance, statute, resolution, judicial, decision, usage, etc., or
recognized, and enforced, by the controlling authority.
5. In philosophy and physics: A rule of being, operation, or change, so
certain and constant that it is conceived of as imposed by the will of
God or by some controlling authority; as, the law of gravitation; the
laws of motion; the law heredity; the laws of thought; the laws of
cause and effect; law of self- preservation.
6. In mathematics: The rule according to which anything, as the change
of value of a variable, or the value of the terms of a series,
proceeds; mode or order of sequence.
7. In arts, works, games, etc.: The rules of construction, or of
procedure, conforming to the conditions of success; a principle, maxim;
or usage; as, the laws of poetry, of architecture, of courtesy, or of
whist.
8. Collectively, the whole body of rules relating to one subject, or
emanating from one source; -- including usually the writings pertaining
to them, and judicial proceedings under them; as, divine law; English
law; Roman law; the law of real property; insurance law.
9. Legal science; jurisprudence; the principles of equity; applied
justice.
Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is
nothing else but reason.
Coke.
Law is beneficence acting by rule.
Burke.
And sovereign Law, that state's collected will O'er thrones and
globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill.
Sir W. Jones.
10. Trial by the laws of the land; judicial remedy; litigation; as, to
go law.
When every case in law is right.
Shak.
He found law dear and left it cheap.
Brougham.
11. An oath, as in the presence of a court. [Obs.] See Wager of law,
under Wager.
Avogadro's law (Chem.), a fundamental conception, according to which,
under similar conditions of temperature and pressure, all gases and
vapors contain in the same volume the same number of ultimate
molecules; -- so named after Avogadro, an Italian scientist. Sometimes
called Ampère's law. -- Bode's law (Astron.), an approximative
empirical expression of the distances of the planets from the sun, as
follows: --
where each distance (line third) is the sum of 4 and a multiple of 3 by
the series 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, etc., the true distances being given in the
lower line. -- Boyle's law (Physics), an expression of the fact, that
when an elastic fluid is subjected to compression, and kept at a
constant temperature, the product of the pressure and volume is a
constant quantity, i. e., the volume is inversely proportioned to the
pressure; -- known also as Mariotte's law, and the law of Boyle and
Mariotte. -- Brehon laws. See under Brehon. -- Canon law, the body of
ecclesiastical law adopted in the Christian Church, certain portions of
which (for example, the law of marriage as existing before the Council
of Tent) were brought to America by the English colonists as part of
the common law of the land. Wharton. -- Civil law, a term used by
writers to designate Roman law, with modifications thereof which have
been made in the different countries into which that law has been
introduced. The civil law, instead of the common law, prevails in the
State of Louisiana. Wharton. -- Commercial law. See Law merchant
(below). -- Common law. See under Common. -- Criminal law, that branch
of jurisprudence which relates to crimes. -- Ecclesiastical law. See
under Ecclesiastical. -- Grimm's law (Philol.), a statement (propounded
by the German philologist Jacob Grimm) of certain regular changes which
the primitive Indo-European mute consonants, so-called (most plainly
seen in Sanskrit and, with some changes, in Greek and Latin), have
undergone in the Teutonic languages. Examples: Skr. bhtr, L. frater, E.
brother, G. bruder; L. tres, E. three, G. drei, Skr. go, E. cow, G.
kuh; Skr. dh to put, Gr. ti-qe`-nai, E. do, OHG, tuon, G. thun. --
Kepler's laws (Astron.), three important laws or expressions of the
order of the planetary motions, discovered by John Kepler. They are
these: (1) The orbit of a planet with respect to the sun is an ellipse,
the sun being in one of the foci. (2) The areas swept over by a vector
drawn from the sun to a planet are proportioned to the times of
describing them. (3) The squares of the times of revolution of two
planets are in the ratio of the cubes of their mean distances. -- Law
binding, a plain style of leather binding, used for law books; --
called also law calf. -- Law book, a book containing, or treating of,
laws. -- Law calf. See Law binding (above). -- Law day. (a) Formerly, a
day of holding court, esp. a court-leet. (b) The day named in a
mortgage for the payment of the money to secure which it was given. [U.
S.] -- Law French, the dialect of Norman, which was used in judicial
proceedings and law books in England from the days of William the
Conqueror to the thirty-sixth year of Edward III. -- Law language, the
language used in legal writings and forms. -- Law Latin. See under
Latin. -- Law lords, peers in the British Parliament who have held high
judicial office, or have been noted in the legal profession. -- Law
merchant, or Commercial law, a system of rules by which trade and
commerce are regulated; -- deduced from the custom of merchants, and
regulated by judicial decisions, as also by enactments of legislatures.
-- Law of Charles (Physics), the law that the volume of a given mass of
gas increases or decreases, by a definite fraction of its value for a
given rise or fall of temperature; -- sometimes less correctly styled
Gay Lussac's law, or Dalton's law. -- Law of nations. See International
law, under International. -- Law of nature. (a) A broad generalization
expressive of the constant action, or effect, of natural conditions;
as, death is a law of nature; self-defense is a law of nature. See Law,
4. (b) A term denoting the standard, or system, of morality deducible
from a study of the nature and natural relations of human beings
independent of supernatural revelation or of municipal and social
usages. -- Law of the land, due process of law; the general law of the
land. -- Laws of honor. See under Honor. -- Laws of motion (Physics),
three laws defined by Sir Isaac Newton: (1) Every body perseveres in
its state of rest or of moving uniformly in a straight line, except so
far as it is made to change that state by external force. (2) Change of
motion is proportional to the impressed force, and takes place in the
direction in which the force is impressed. (3) Reaction is always equal
and opposite to action, that is to say, the actions of two bodies upon
each other are always equal and in opposite directions. -- Marine law,
or Maritime law, the law of the sea; a branch of the law merchant
relating to the affairs of the sea, such as seamen, ships, shipping,
navigation, and the like. Bouvier. -- Mariotte's law. See Boyle's law
(above). -- Martial law.See under Martial. -- Military law, a branch of
the general municipal law, consisting of rules ordained for the
government of the military force of a state in peace and war, and
administered in courts martial. Kent. Warren's Blackstone. -- Moral
law, the law of duty as regards what is right and wrong in the sight of
God; specifically, the ten commandments given by Moses. See Law, 2. --
Mosaic, or Ceremonial, law. (Script.) See Law, 3. -- Municipal law, or
Positive law, a rule prescribed by the supreme power of a state,
declaring some right, enforcing some duty, or prohibiting some act; --
distinguished from international and constitutional law. See Law, 1. --
Periodic law. (Chem.) See under Periodic. -- Roman law, the system of
principles and laws found in the codes and treatises of the lawmakers
and jurists of ancient Rome, and incorporated more or less into the
laws of the several European countries and colonies founded by them.
See Civil law (above). -- Statute law, the law as stated in statutes or
positive enactments of the legislative body. -- Sumptuary law. See
under Sumptuary. -- To go to law, to seek a settlement of any matter by
bringing it before the courts of law; to sue or prosecute some one. --
To take, or have, the law of, to bring the law to bear upon; as, to
take the law of one's neighbor. Addison. -- Wager of law. See under
Wager.
Syn. -- Justice; equity. -- Law, Statute, Common law, Regulation,
Edict, Decree. Law is generic, and, when used with reference to, or in
connection with, the other words here considered, denotes whatever is
commanded by one who has a right to require obedience. A statute is a
particular law drawn out in form, and distinctly enacted and
proclaimed. Common law is a rule of action founded on long usage and
the decisions of courts of justice. A regulation is a limited and
often, temporary law, intended to secure some particular end or object.
An edict is a command or law issued by a sovereign, and is peculiar to
a despotic government. A decree is a permanent order either of a court
or of the executive government. See Justice.