legality

legal +‎ -ity

legality (countable and uncountable, plural legalities)

1. Lawfulness.
   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 206:

     Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest.

2. A dice game; the same as chuck-a-luck.
   • 1888 August 13, “Police Intelligence: Clerkenwell”, in London Evening Standard, page 2:

     There was one game in particular called “legality,” in which the managers of the establishment played against all comers. It was a game in which six numbers were marked upon a board, the players staked upon a number, the keeper of the bank threw against the players, and according to whether they were successful or not in the number they backed, they won or lost.

• illegality

• pseudolegality
• principle of legality