[a. L. lēgis-lātor, properly two words, = ‘proposer of a law’ (lēgis, genitive of lēx law + lātor, used as agent-n. to ferre to bear, carry, bring).] One who makes laws (for a people or nation); a lawgiver; a member of a legislative body.
1605. Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iii. III. Law, 168. This Boat … saves from wrack the future Legislator [Moses].
1607. Schol. Disc. agst. Antichr., II. v. 10. He draweth the absolute authoritie of Man, not from God as he is God, but as he is Legis-lator only.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. XXVI. 139. For the Legislator is he, not by whose authority the Lawes were first made, but by whose authority they now continue to be Lawes.
1711. Pope, Temp. Fame, 74. Heroes in animated marble frown, And Legislators seem to think in stone.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend (1865), 44. Laws in doubtful points are to be interpreted according to the design of the legislator.
1878. Jevons, Prim. Pol. Econ., 77. Legislators have long since discovered the absurdity of attempting to fix prices by law.
transf. 1821. Byron, Two Foscari, IV. i. I will be a legislator in this business.
1831. Brewster, Newton (1855), II. xxvii. 403. The alleged legislator of science.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, i. 29. Aristotle is the legislator for the human intellect through eighteen centuries after his death.
Hence Legislatorship, the position of legislator.
1654. J. Spittlehouse, Vind. Fifth Monarchy Men, 19. Do they not, by so doing, dethrone and degrade the Lord Jesus of his Legislatorship and Judicature, which the Father hath given unto him?
1695. Ld. Halifax, Cautions Chuse Members in Parlt., 14. There ought to be a difference made between coming out of Pupilage, and leaping into Legislatorship.
1890. J. Hatton, By Order of Czar, I. II. i. 223. He … looked upon the principle of hereditary legislatorship as a grand old traditional farce.
