lawing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of law.

   Note

   The -ing form of the verb law, which mostly survives in its dialectal sense of suing or going to court. That verb works both ways: with an object (lawing a neighbor) and without one (lawing over a fence). As a gerund it overlaps almost completely with the noun for litigation. The older senses, such as practicing law and governing by law, are obsolete or nonstandard.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The process of going to court to settle a dispute; litigation.

   Years of lawing drained the family's savings and their friendships alike.

   The quarrel ended in lawing once neither side would back down.

   Similarlitigation

   Note

   A noun built directly from law plus the suffix -ing, naming the whole business of taking a quarrel to court rather than any single suit. It goes back at least to Holinshed's Chronicles of England (1577). Because it sits so close to the gerund of the verb law, 'years of lawing' can be read either way; as a noun it takes adjectives and articles, while the verb form takes an object.

3. 3
   nounobsoleteScotlandUK

   Money owed in payment for a service that has been provided.

   The innkeeper added the lawing for stabling to the traveler's bill.

   Late at e'en, drinking the wine, And ere they paid the lawing, They set a combat them between, To fight it in the dawing.

   1925, George Wharton Edwards, The Book of Old English Ballads

   Note

   A Scots word for the bill, especially the tavern reckoning for food and drink. Its natural verb is pay: in an old ballad the drinkers fight 'ere they paid the lawing', and Sir Walter Scott sets it among the inn charges of St. Ronan's Well (1824). The usage is obsolete. Use it today only for period color or when quoting older Scottish writing, where a reader expects a word for 'the tab'.

4. 4
   verb

   Present participle of lawe.

   Note

   A different verb that happens to share the spelling. To lawe a dog was to cut off the claws and balls of its forefeet so that it could not hunt. The verb is transitive, so the dog is always the object: lawing a dog, not lawing about one. Lawe was also an obsolete spelling of law itself, which is why this form is easily confused with the litigation verb.

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