blue laws


pl n
  1. US history a number of repressive puritanical laws of the colonial period, forbidding any secular activity on Sundays

Words Nearby blue laws

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

How to use blue laws in a sentence

  • These blue laws, as they were called, aimed at establishing an almost theocratic form of government.

  • These agents should be licensed by the State as the “blue laws” require the licensing of stock salesmen.

    The Modern Ku Klux Klan | Henry Peck Fry
  • The old blue laws were stringently enforced, and the penalty for infringement was usually a sharp one.

    Greenwich Village | Anna Alice Chapin
  • There is at the present time a strong and perhaps growing tendency towards enacting Sunday blue laws.

  • I spent the first years of my life under the influence of what history has called the "blue laws" of Connecticut.

    Leaves from My Journal | Wilford Woodruff

Cultural definitions for blue laws

blue laws

Laws that prohibit certain businesses from opening on Sunday or from selling certain items on that day. Blue laws often apply to bars and to alcohol sales. Originally enacted to allow observation of Sunday as a Sabbath, blue laws have come under attack as violating the separation of church and state. The courts, however, have upheld most blue laws, on the basis that their observance has become secular and promotes Sunday as a day of rest and relaxation.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.