War, law & rule

law

Law is 'what is laid down': a Norse plural meaning 'layers, things set in order' that the Danes brought to England, where it replaced Old English ǣ. It is unrelated to Latin lēx and legal; its Scandinavian relatives went on to give Finnish laki and, through Danish, Norwegian and Faroese lov.

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

From Old Norse to Icelandic

From Old Norse to Swedish, Finnish

From Old Norse to Danish, Norwegian

From Danish to Faroese

From Middle English to Scots

500 BCEProto-Germanic

Hops are evenly spaced; labels show the year each form is first attested.

law

Weakest linkCertain

The road to English

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