Etymology: Late Old English (c1000) lagu strong feminine (plural laga ), < prehistoric Old Norse *lagu ( < Old Icelandic lǫg ), plural of lag neuter; in singular the word meant in Old Icelandic ‘something laid or fixed’ (specific senses being, e.g. ‘layer, stratum’, ‘share in an undertaking’, ‘partnership’, ‘fixed or market price’, ‘set tune’, etc.); the plural had the collective sense ‘law’, and in Old Norwegian its form became (as in Old English) a feminine singular; compare Old Swedish lagh neuter singular and plural, law, Swedish lag , plural lagar , Danish lov . The Old Norse lag corresponds to Old Saxon -lag neuter (in the compounds aldar-lagu plural destined length of life, or-lag fate, war) < Germanic *lago^m , < root *lag- < Old Aryan *logh- (:*legh- ): see lay v.¹, lie v.¹ The Latin lēg- , lēx is not now generally believed to be cognate (being referred to the root *leg- of legĕre to gather, read, λέγειν to gather, say); but in many other languages the word for ‘law’ is derived from roots meaning ‘to place’; compare, e.g., English doom n., Greek θέμις , θεσμός , Latin statutum , German gesetz . The native word in Old English was ǽ : see e n.²As law is the usual English rendering of Latin lex, and to some extent of Latin jus, and of Greek νόμος, its development of senses has been in some degree affected by the uses of these words.