lawlessness
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Etymology tree
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]lawlessness (countable and uncountable, plural lawlessnesses)
- A lack of law; a lack of law and order; anarchy.
- Synonyms: unlaw; see also Thesaurus:illegality
- Antonyms: law, rule of law, law and order; see also Thesaurus:legality
- Near-synonyms: Wild West, free-for-all
- Defiance of the law; outlawry, exorbitant levels of crime.
- Synonyms: unlaw, unlawfulness
- Antonym: lawfulness
- 2009 August 12, Jennifer 8. Lee, “Corruption Found at Waterfront Watchdog”, in The New York Times[1]:
- The Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, created in the 1950s to break the mob’s grip on the docks, became its own bastion of corruption and lawlessnesses, according to a scathing report from the released on Tuesday after a nearly two-year investigation by the state inspector general’s office.
- 2023 August 28, Gail Collins and Bret Stephens, “Vivek Ramaswamy Is Suddenly Part of Our Political Life”, in The New York Times[2]:
- We’re in decline because a spirit of lawlessness, shamelessness and brainlessness has become a leading feature of a conservative movement that was supposed to be a bulwark against all three.
- 2026 August 10, “One Year Later, President Trump Has Delivered on Making D.C. Safe Again”, in The White House[3], archived from the original on 11 August 2026:
- The nation’s capital is no longer a Democrat-run nightmare of murder and lawlessness. Violent predators, gangbangers, drug traffickers, and sex offenders have been removed from the streets. Homeless encampments cleared. Parks reclaimed. Crime driven toward historic lows.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:lawlessness.
Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]lack of law and order
|
Categories:
- English terms suffixed with -ness
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *legʰ-
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *lewh₁-
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations