legalisticadj.

1870 J. Duncan in D. Brown Life Late J. Duncan (1872) xx. 475 I distinguish between legal and legalistic. It is good to be legal—the Gospel is very legal.

1881 Bibliotheca Sacra 38 96 We have now passed in review the various classes of weak and false brethren whose legalistic and ascetic tendencies gave such trouble to the early church.

1894 Thinker 5 439 Malachi was compelled to raise his voice against the extreme legalistic standpoint.

1935 Fortune Aug. 31/3 A complicated intermanagement dog fight too legalistic for further notice here.

1972 Guardian 23 Oct. 12/2 There are..measures which can be taken at once to lift Strasbourg out of its futile and legalistic rut.

1990 Plain Eng. Jan. 3/1 The NHBC's legal department worked closely with Plain English Campaign to replace a range of legalistic and largely incomprehensible documents.

2002 Prospect Aug. 28/1 In this uniquely legalistic, textually based society, it is hardly possible to doubt that they [sc. the founding fathers] are the foundation on which America was built.

1901 Amer. Jrnl. Theol. 5 409 ‘Cultus’ has often implied the notion of trying to secure action on God's part in accordance with human desire, or that of legalistically and ritually fulfilling a divine decree or ordinance.

1939 Federal Reporter (1940) 2nd Ser. 106 cvi. 721/2 Section 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, relating to company-controlled unions, must not be construed so strictly or so legalistically so as to destroy its purpose or the legislative intent.

2010 Carroll (Iowa) Daily Times Herald 9 July 8 (advt.) Jesus said that living legalistically doesn't cut it with God. God knows our heart. God knows our motives.