leg-, lex

To render legitimate or lawful, in various senses; especially, to render (a child) legitimate by legal enactment or otherwise.

Bachelor of Laws degree.

Doctor of Laws degree.

1. In medieval jurisprudence, a body or collection of various laws peculiar to a given nation or people; not a code in the modern sense, but an aggregation or collection of laws not codified or systematized.
2. In modern American and British jurisprudence, a system or body of laws, written or unwritten, or so much thereof as may be applicable to a particular case or question, considered as being local or peculiar to a given state, country, or jurisdiction, or as being different from the laws or rules relating to the same subject-matter which prevail in some other place.
3. In old English law, a body or collection of laws, and particularly the Roman or civil law.
4. Lex is used in a purely juridical sense, law, and not also right; while jus has an ethical as well as a juridical meaning, not only law, but right.
5. Other specific meanings of the word in Roman jurisprudence were as follows:

Positive law, as opposed to natural.

That system of law that descended from the Twelve Tables, and formed the basis of all the Roman law.

The terms of a private covenant; the condition of an obligation.

A form of words prescribed to be used upon particular occasions.

1. The fact of being a legitimate child.
2. The condition of being in accordance with law or principle. Now often, with respect to a sovereign's title, in a narrower sense: The fact of being derived by regular descent; occasionally the principle of lineal succession to the throne, as a political doctrine.
3. Conformity to rule or principle; lawfulness.

Long established custom has the force of law.

A legal term.

He is no writer whose verses no one reads.

No punishment without a law.

If a law didn't exist before a specific action was committed, one can't be sentenced to prison for that activity.

1. A right, advantage, or immunity granted to or enjoyed by a person, or a body or class of people.
2. Beyond the common advantages of others; an exemption in a particular case from certain burdens or liabilities.
3. A bill of law in favor or against an individual (privus, "single, private" plus leg, stem of lex, legis, "law".

Used to describe regulations that are not regarded as laws proper but have the force of law, or to describe bodies that have the right to make such regulations.