statute

STACH-ootnoun

Meaning a written law

Memory hook the STATUE holds the STATUTE. In front of the courthouse, a stone statue holds up a scroll: the town’s first written law. The statue is art; the scroll is a statute.

A statute passed by the state lawmakers last spring bans fireworks after ten o’clock at night.

In context The judge explained that she could not simply follow her own sense of fairness; she had to apply the statute exactly as the lawmakers had written it.

Similar law, act, regulation, ordinance

From Latin statutum, “something set up,” from statuere, “to set up, to decide.”