a. [f. LAW sb.1 + LIKE.] a. Like to law, having a resemblance to law, or to legal phraseology or proceedings. Now rare. † b. Disposed or inclined to law or rule. Obs.
1553. Grimalde, Cicero’s Offices, I. (1558), 3. Plato coulde haue spoken very grauelie and plentifully if he would haue practised ye lawlike sort of pleading.
1575. Gascoigne, Dulce bellum, cciii. Let not my verse your lawlike minds displease.
1638. Lisle, Ags. Monum., Lord’s Prayer, &c. The ten lawlike words, that God himself taught Moyses.
1644. Milton, Divorce, II. vii. 47. The giving of any law or law-like dispence to sin for hardnesse of heart.
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 301. Provisions dressed forth with all the ‘saids’ and other law-like words.
