▪ I. lawing, n. Sc.
(ˈlɔːɪŋ)
[f. law n.2 + -ing1.]
A reckoning at a tavern; a tavern-bill.
| 1535 Stewart Cron. Scot. (1858) II. 633 The Scottis countit thair lawing so deir. 1686 G. Stuart Joco-ser. Disc. 68 Come to my house some other day I'll pay the lawing, gang your way. 1728 Ramsay Lure 4 Night-drinking sots counting their lawin. a 1774 Fergusson Leith Races Poems (1845) 33 They rake the grunds o' ilka barrel To profit by the lawin. 1824 Scott Redgauntlet ii, No man should enter the door of a public-house without paying his lawing. |
b. Comb.: lawing-free a., not called upon for one's share in the bill; scot-free.
| 17.. Song, Andro & his Cutty Gun in Ramsay Tea-t. Misc. (1775) II. 229 She heght to keep me lawing-free. 1794 Poems, Eng. Scot. & Lat. 103 I'm no for letting ye, ye see, (As I ware rich) gang lawin free. |
▪ II. lawing, vbl. n.
(ˈlɔːɪŋ)
[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 G. 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. |
▪ III. † ˈlawing, ppl. a. Obs. rare—1.
[f. law v. + -ing2.]
Given to litigation.
| 1640 D. Cawdrey Three Serm. (1641) Ep. Ded., To strangle the lawlesse contentions of this Lawing age. |