blue law
2
9.3
- noun
- /blu lɔ/
- Formal
:
ley dominical
- In some states, blue laws still prevent the sale of alcohol on Sundays, impacting local businesses.
Examples
-
Blue laws prevent employees from showing up to work before midnight, Whiting said.
Blog text (4) -
Beverly resident Jon Hurst, the president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, said the state's blue laws may be hurting some Bay State retailers.
Blog text (4) -
I'm all in favor of blue laws being put to a vote.
Blog text (10) -
In fact, in some states, there are, or at least used to be, blue laws that prevented most businesses from opening on Sundays.
Blog text (29) -
The issue of state "blue laws" was eventually raised again, under another guise, in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Academic text (1998) -
They've only relatively recently loosened blue laws and liquor laws.
Blog text (16) -
Although such legislation had its origins in European Sabbatarian and sumptuary laws, the term "blue laws" is usually only applied to American legislation.
Academic text (1998) -
Such fears were again expressed in 1961, when the Supreme Court found the blue laws constitutional on the ground that Sunday had become a secular holiday so that the laws no longer represented a state establishment of religion and therefore were not in conflict with the Constitution.
Academic text (1998) -
Many stores were closed on Sundays because of the blue laws that restricted shopping on that day.
-
The new governor proposed a repeal of the state's outdated blue laws that limited business operations on Sundays.
How Restrictive
- Formal
484
1.4
- Formal
2
9.3
- Formal
340
3.0
344
3.1
Surface Forms
Morphology
blue + law
The meaning 'a law restricting Sunday activities' cannot be derived from the literal meanings of 'blue' and 'law' because contemporary 'blue' has no transparent link to Sabbath restrictions; the color/adjective sense does not predict this legal sense. This term is historically and idiomatically motivated (originating in specific cultural/historical usage), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would not reliably infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
Blue law may come from one popular story: in some old American towns, strict church rules were printed on blue paper, so the color blue became linked to religious rules and the word law meant a rule. Those rules often stopped shops from opening on 'Sunday', so blue law now means a law that 'restricts' certain activities on that day.