verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb

1. 1
   To pass laws (including the amending or repeal of existing laws).

   "If they can't get people to do the right thing by talking then they will try to legislate and enforce the statutes."

2. 2
   make laws, bills, etc. or bring into effect by legislation wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

authorizeconstitutedeclare lawfuldecreeenactenact laws

Example

More examples

"It's not possible to legislate against stupidity."

Etymology

Back-formation from legislation, legislator.

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