[f. LAW v. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. LAW.
1. Going to law; litigation. Obs. exc. arch.
c. 1485. E. E. Misc. (Warton Club), 51. As many as her doth here For lawing schalle they not stere.
1526. Tindale, 2 Cor. xii. 20. I feare lest there be founde amonge you lawynge [Gr. ἔρεις. Wycl. stryuyngis, Cov. debates, 1611 variance, 1881 (R.V.) strife].
1554–9. T. Watertoune, in Songs & Ball. (1860), 10. Behold throughe lawyng howe som be brought bar.
1586. J. Hooker, Hist. Irel., in Holinshed, II. 54/2. Lawing & vexation in the towns, one dailie suing and troubling another.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 64 a. To defray the extraordinarie charge of building, marriage, lawing, or such like.
1640. D. Cawdrey, Three Serm. (1641), 2. Warre is but a more public kind of Lawing.
1737. Ozell, Rabelais, III. v. 33, note. So Lawing was his natural Element.
1891. B. Harte, 1st Fam. Tasajara, iv. It might be a matter of ‘lawing’ hereafter.
Proverb. 1562. J. Heywood, Epigr. (1867), 180. Great lawyng, small louyng.
1631. Bp. Webbe, Quietn. (1657), 201. Then should we have less lawing and more love.
attrib. 1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, 167. It is not so light a matter to skirmish among the musket bullet, as to pen out a Lawing plea.
2. The action of cutting off the claws or ball of a dog’s forefeet; expeditation. Obs. exc. Hist.
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Lawing of dogs.
1768. Blackstone, Comm., III. 72. The court of regard, or survey of dogs, is to be holden every third year for the lawing or expeditation of mastiffs.
1876. Freeman, Norm. Conq., V. xxiii. 163. In his love for the chase he … kept up the cruel mutilation, the lawing, as it was called, of all dogs in the neighbourhood of the royal forests.
