law of the land
31
4.7
- noun
- Formal
:
ley fundamental
- The fate of our country is still being decided by men alone and yet women, who are subjected daily and equally to the laws of the land, are not permitted to vote.
- the supreme law of the land
- become the law of the land
In the time and place that I study, universal suffrage was officially the law of the land.
- In the time and place that I study, universal suffrage was officially the law of the land.
- It's I am not going to get wrapped up about privacy laws when the law of the land is what protects what can and can't be prosecuted against me.
- But it was for a while the law of the land, and we would say that it was granting a legal right where there was no moral right.
Examples
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Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.
Blog text (11) -
The law of the land is that before we put somebody to death, we're going to check everything to make sure that it's right.
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Title seven is the law of the land.
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It's the law of the land now.
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All my life, I, like most citizens, have followed the laws of the land.
Blog text (13) -
Equal pay for women became the law of the land in 1963.
Blog text (12) -
The obvious starting point is that companies ought to abide by the laws of the land where they do business.
Academic text (2001) -
It's the law of the land, and it would remain so even if UNESCO itself disappeared.
Academic text (2008) -
The rich get richer, that's the law of the land.
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The new regulation is now considered the law of the land for all citizens to follow.
Synonyms
2
3.9
A set of laws a country officially uses
1
5.6
A set of basic rules that explains how a country's government works and what rights people have
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'the law that applies in a territory' is directly derivable from combining 'law' and 'land' with the genitive pattern 'of the'; a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer this interpretation. This is a common, cross‑linguistic construction (e.g., Spanish 'ley del país') and follows standard noun + of + noun composition, so it is transparent.
Etymology
The phrase law of the land may come from a simple old idea: the same law should cover all the land, not just one lord's house or a small area. That picture of rules that apply everywhere helps explain why it now means the 'main law' of a country.