Lawspeaker
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An official in Scandinavia whose duties included memorizing laws as well as presiding over, and reciting the laws at, regional Things or the Althing. historical
"In every legal district there is a lawspeaker, and he has the greatest power among the farmers, because whatever he decides to be the law stands.[…]But whenever there is a conflict in their laws, then the Uppsala laws prevail; and all the other lawspeakers have a lower rank than the one who functions for the Tíundaland."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"In every legal district there is a lawspeaker, and he has the greatest power among the farmers, because whatever he decides to be the law stands.[…]But whenever there is a conflict in their laws, then the Uppsala laws prevail; and all the other lawspeakers have a lower rank than the one who functions for the Tíundaland."
Etymology
From law + speaker; compare lawman.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.