law of nature
Britishnoun
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an empirical truth of great generality, conceived of as a physical (but not a logical) necessity, and consequently licensing counterfactual conditionals
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a system of morality conceived of as grounded in reason See natural law nomological
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See law 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It was a bet that stocks and bonds would move in opposite directions, dressed up in a word that made it sound like a law of nature.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026
The results suggest that future improvements depend primarily on advances in materials science rather than overcoming an unavoidable law of nature.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 2, 2026
James Otis, a prominent Patriot from Massachusetts, asserted in 1764 that the “colonists are by the law of nature free born, as indeed all men are, white or black.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
A recently published scientific article proposes a sweeping new law of nature, approaching the matter with dry, clinical efficiency that still reads like poetry.
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2023
What is important for our immediate purposes is the way in which his discussion echoes through the later literature on the law of nature, for of course Montaigne was read by all the educated.
From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
