Meaning

noun a rule adopted by an organization in order to regulate its own affairs and the behavior of its members

originFrom Middle English bylawe, bilawe, partly from Old English bīlage (“bylaw”) and partly from a variant of Middle English byrelawe, birlawe, from Old Norse býjar (“town's; settlement's”) + lǫg (“laws; jurisdiction”). Byrlaw is attested earlier in English but is unattested in Old Norse and the cognates in Scandinavian languages follow the development of bylaw: Danish bylov (“municipal law”),…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0