as in legislator
a member of an organized body of persons having the authority to make laws political activists strenuously lobbied the state's lawgivers to expand the scope of the civil rights legislation

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of lawgiver Centuries earlier, the ancient lawgiver Solon had sought to curb pleonexia by legislating against luxury and economic inequality. David Lay Williams, TIME, 2 Oct. 2024 The oil painted portraits of past judges and four marble figures, all historically significant lawgivers, loomed overhead, mounted on the walls of the courtroom. Ella Lee, USA TODAY, 25 May 2023 Time and again, in unilaterally decreeing sweeping legislative policies such as student-loan forgiveness, an eviction moratorium, and a national vaccine mandate, Biden has acted as if the president is a national lawgiver with general police powers. The Editors, National Review, 25 Apr. 2023 Thus, the biblical lawgiver made sure that no Jew would ever get a perfect 10 in the test of the commandments. Joseph Berger, New York Times, 13 Apr. 2023 Yet the earliest legal collection in the Bible, in the book of Exodus, lacks the role of the king as a lawgiver for the first time in the history of the ancient Near East. Samuel L. Boyd, The Conversation, 10 Mar. 2022 Scholars have noted an innovation that occurred in the laws in the Bible: There is no king who acts as the lawgiver. Samuel L. Boyd, The Conversation, 10 Mar. 2022 In other words, a Spartan way of life that gradually took shape was retroactively attributed to a single lawgiver, whose name gave it an almost divine authority. Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 7 June 2021 In ancient Sparta, the lawgiver Lycurgus had contrived to make his constitution permanently unamendable. Akhil Reed Amar, Time, 7 May 2021

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“Lawgiver.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/lawgiver. Accessed 3 Dec. 2024.

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