Definition of "law" []

• A rule of conduct or procedure established by custom, agreement, or authority. (noun)
• The body of rules and principles governing the affairs of a community and enforced by a political authority; a legal system: international law. (noun)
• The condition of social order and justice created by adherence to such a system: a breakdown of law and civilized behavior. (noun)
• A set of rules or principles dealing with a specific area of a legal system: tax law; criminal law. (noun)
• A piece of enacted legislation. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I just really hate it when people twist what the state of the law is, or make extreme claims with colorful language about what is a fairly unexceptional case *under current law*."
• "It is this feature of the natural law that justifies, on Aquinas's view, our calling the natural law ˜law.™"
• "This involves at least two separate claims: In one sense, it can be understood as a thesis about the concept of law, maintaining that what we call ˜law™ can only be those norms which are backed by sanctions of the political sovereign."