Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A going to law; litigation.
  • noun The practice or act of cutting off the claws and balls of the feet of an animal, as of the fore feet of a dog, to incapacitate it from following game. See law, transitive verb, 4.
  • noun A reckoning at a public house; a tavernbill. Also lawin.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Expeditation.
  • noun Going to law; litigation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Going to law; litigation.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

law +‎ -ing

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Examples

  • The disabling dogs, which might be necessary for keeping flocks and herds, from running at the deer, was called lawing, and was in general use.

    Ivanhoe. A Romance 1819

  • Illinois, Lincoln rode knee to knee with an old settler who admitted that he was going to Lewiston to have some "lawing" out with a neighbor, also an old-timer.

    The Lincoln Story Book Henry Llewellyn Williams

  • On the day that Magendie took the case I had a taste of another kind of lawing than Pitcairn's, for the London man, to speak in a common phrase, oiled everybody.

    Nancy Stair A Novel Elinor Macartney Lane 1886

  • As to the sentiments of Solomon and Jonah, they were held in utter suspense: it seemed to them that the old will would have a certain validity, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Peter's former and latter intentions as to create endless "lawing" before anybody came by their own -- an inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round.

    Middlemarch: a study of provincial life (1900) 1871

  • He wanted them to listen to him carefully, to remember what he said, for it was important; it might be a matter of "lawing" hereafter, -- and he couldn't be always repeating it to them, -- he would have enough to do.

    A First Family of Tasajara Bret Harte 1869

  • As to the sentiments of Solomon and Jonah, they were held in utter suspense: it seemed to them that the old will would have a certain validity, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Peter's former and latter intentions as to create endless "lawing" before anybody came by their own -- an inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round.

    Middlemarch George Eliot 1849

  • The disabling dogs, which might be necessary for keeping flocks and herds, from running at the deer, was called "lawing", and was in general use.

    Ivanhoe Walter Scott 1801

  • "lawing" before anybody came by their own -- an inconvenience which would have at least the advantage of going all round.

    Middlemarch 1871

  • Sorry for the lack of recent posting - I've been busy hanging with Bri, patent lawing, Guidoloning, and going off to Conestoga (an awesome con in Tulsa this last weekend).

    NESFA? frankwu 2009

  • You are not so young in your trade as not to know there are hostelries in every town, much more in a city like Perth, where such as you may be harboured for your money, if you cannot find some gulls, more or fewer, to pay your lawing.

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

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