lawful
Americanadjective
-
allowed or permitted by law; not contrary to law.
a lawful enterprise.
- Synonyms:
- legal
-
recognized or sanctioned by law; legitimate.
a lawful marriage; a lawful heir.
- Synonyms:
- licit
-
appointed or recognized by law; legally qualified.
a lawful king.
-
acting or living according to the law; law-abiding.
a lawful man; a lawful community.
adjective
Other Word Forms
- lawfully adverb
- lawfulness noun
- prelawful adjective
- prelawfully adverb
- prelawfulness noun
- quasi-lawful adjective
- quasi-lawfully adverb
Etymology
Origin of lawful
First recorded in 1250–1300, lawful is from the Middle English word laghful. See law 1, -ful
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.
But they share several threads: lawful presence, few warning signals, online radicalization, and attacks carried out without the fingerprints of an organized network.
The Pentagon, which objects to outside limits on what its troops can do, wants unrestricted access for all lawful purposes.
The lawsuit follows the Department of Defense designated Anthropic a supply chain risk after the company refused to let its technology be used in all lawful cases.
Rodriguez married a U.S. citizen last month and filed for permission to adjust her status to that of lawful permanent resident, which is also pending.
The Pentagon said it wouldn’t do those things and always follows the law, so the company should trust it to use AI in all lawful scenarios.
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.
