Illegality

noun

noun ·5 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    the state of being illegal countable, uncountable

    "The criminal was aware of the illegality of his act."

  2. 2
    unlawfulness by virtue of violating some legal statute wordnet
  3. 3
    a defense to the validity of a contract because it was in violation of the law uncountable

    "When sued for refusing to pay for services provided by a prostitute, the customer raised the defense of illegality."

Synonyms

All synonyms
illegalnesslawlessnessaberranceaberrancyabnormalityanarchy

Example

More examples

"The criminal was aware of the illegality of his act."

Etymology

From French illégalité, equivalent to il- + legality or illegal + -ity.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.