UNWRITTEN LAW • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Unwritten law

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/ənrˈɪtən lɔ/ Listen

adjective

Unwritten adj.

Not written; not reduced to writing; oral; as, unwritten agreements.

Containing no writing; blank; as, unwritten paper.

Unwritten doctrines (Theol.), such doctrines as have been handed down by word of mouth; oral or traditional doctrines.

Unwritten law. That part of the law of England and of the United States which is not derived from express legislative enactment, or at least from any enactment now extant and in force as such. This law is now generally contained in the reports of judicial decisions. See Common law, under Common.

Unwritten laws, such laws as have been handed down by tradition or in song. Such were the laws of the early nations of Europe.

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Etymology of 'Unwritten law'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Unwritten law" Quotes from Famous Books

... the framework of the law—not only the written, but the unwritten law—of his society. In a slave society, any slave who openly rebels will find that he gets squashed pretty quickly. But many a slave-owner has danced willingly to the tune of a slave who was wiser and cleverer ...

— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett

... President. He might, had he wished, have been elected a third time. But like Washington he refused he refused to stand. And as those two great presidents refused to be elected a third time it has become a kind of unwritten law in the United States that no man shall be ...

— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall

... but his father smothered a sigh and watched him with curious solicitude. The unwritten law that Christopher had learnt so well had been very heavily infringed, and Charles Aston had no liking for the man who had infringed it, though he was ...

— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... to see. In the firing he hadn't even raised his own gun to his shoulder. There is a certain code among hunters in regard to shooting another's game: an unwritten law that, except in a case of life and death, one hunter does not interfere with another's shooting. It was through no desire to embarrass Harold that he didn't assist him in putting down his trophy. He was simply giving the man full play. Bill stared at the ...

— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... obeyed the policy from which his family had never swerved through many generations, and which had now become an unwritten law of the State. But his brother, Yoshinobu, read the signs of the times in a sinister light. He argued that the real power had passed to the military magnates, and that by attempting to stem the current the Fujiwara might be swept away altogether. He therefore repaired to the palace, and simulating ...

— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

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