v. [modern f. CODE + -FY, like classify, etc., prob. after F. codifier.]
1. To reduce (laws) to a code; to digest.
c. 1800. Bentham, Gen. View of Compl. Code of Laws (L.). I propose to codify this.
1858. Bright, Sp. Reform, 10 Dec. The laws had been codified and simplified.
1867. Macfarren, Harmony, ii. 35. Modern theorists have codified the laws of counterpoint.
absol. 1837. Ht. Martineau, Soc. in Amer. (1839), I. 42. Bentham … offered … to codify for several of the United States, and also for Russia.
2. gen. To reduce to a general system; to systematize.
1873. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tongue, § 193. He proceeds on the principle of codifying the actual practice [of orthography].
1880. Jefferies, Hodge & M., II. 205. The grumbles, the complaints and so forth, had never been codified.
Hence Codified ppl. a., Codifying vbl. sb.
1861. Pearson, Early & Mid. Ages Eng., I. xxxiii. 570. The feeling of the times was against the codifying of customs.
1876. J. Parker, Paracl., I. v. 56. There are codified lives that can move only as the book permits.
