To ‘legislate‘ means to introduce new laws. ‘Legislation’ is the new laws that are introduced.

Example of today’s usage:

• The government should introduce new legislation to control the use of weapons.
• In the 1970s the government legislated to ensure that women had equal pay to men for equal work.

Collocations: When you learn new vocab, make sure that you note collocations too. For this group of words some collocations are:
labour of love, labourious work
legality of, legal advice, legal counsel, legally bound
legislation for, new legislation
the majority of, major problem
methodical approach

Check the meanings of the words if you don’t already know them. Check the meanings of the different forms if they seem to be different. You can check them at Time4english by clicking the words (http://www.time4english.com/aamain/lounge/awl.asp).

Complete the sentences below with the correct form of the word.

1. The _______________ of the staff are not happy with the wages offered. (labour, major)
2. Some people think drugs should be _______________ to reduce drug-related crime.  (legal, major)
3. The government passed new _______________ related to visas. (legislate, legal)
4. When you do a research project, you have to be ______________ in your planning. (legislate, method)
5. Some countries use cheap ______________ from other countries to do a lot of undesirable work. (labour, method )

Answers (in the wrong order below)
4. methodical   3. legislation 2.legalised   1. majority   5. labour