UNLAWFULNESS Synonyms: 55 Similar and Opposite Words

unlawfulness

noun

Definition of unlawfulness

as in illegality

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Example Sentences

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 unlawfulness But in a court-martial, a service member who argues that an order is unlawful has the burden of proving its unlawfulness. — Joshua Kastenberg, The Conversation, 16 Dec. 2025 Many people at Harvard and elsewhere feared that the university would reach a deal with the Administration before Judge Burroughs’s decision, because that would have meant that no court would declare the unlawfulness of the Administration’s actions toward academic institutions. — Jeannie Suk Gersen, New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2025

Recent Examples of Synonyms for unlawfulness

Noun

The Founders never predicted that a president, his Cabinet, Department of Justice, Supreme Court and Congress would not challenge the blatant illegality that has been happening over the past two years.

— Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 11 Sep. 2026
In an attempt to make the case against him, Pembrock commits a stunning act of illegality that would immediately have the case thrown out of court but at least provides the film a few moments of suspense.

— Frank Scheck, HollywoodReporter, 31 Aug. 2026

Definition of illegality

Noun

The shootings in South Africa are mostly connected to criminality, rather than ideological motive or personal grievance.

— ABC News, ABC News, 27 Sep. 2026
This allows the industry to continue to profit from criminality no matter the astronomical amount of fraud committed.

— Mike Ryan, Sun Sentinel, 24 Sep. 2026

Definition of criminality

Noun

This keeps the performance informal and keeps the narrative — a staggering odyssey of injustices, abuses, travel adventures, extraordinary coincidences, losses, reunions, reflections and self-analysis — from becoming sensationalized.

— Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 2 Oct. 2026
RatHat abuses that legitimate feature to establish shell-level access outside the normal Android app sandbox.

— Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 2 Oct. 2026

Definition of abuse

Noun

East of Eden is a tome obsessed with guilt, sin, ambition, race, the land as healing and capitalism as putrefying, the nature of fate and the question of free will, and the role money and inheritance play in either our corruption or our cleansing.

— Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 1 Oct. 2026
Brown, who served as the union’s chief of staff and as special assistant to ex-International President Newton Jones, is the first of eight former Boilermakers to be sentenced in the federal corruption case.

— Judy L. Thomas, Kansas City Star, 1 Oct. 2026

Definition of corruption

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unlawful

unlawfulness

unlay

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“Unlawfulness.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unlawfulness. Accessed 5 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of unlawfulness

noun

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