Note 242 — Chapter V · THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.
Reading edition
The word in its older form was written ‘allay.’ Johnson derives it from à la loi, allier, allocare: it appears to me the Spanish el ley, the legal quality of coinable metal. We have now naturalised in English ley, meaning a standard of metals. (Sub voc. Dict. of Obsolete and Provincial English, by Thomas Wright; London, Bell and Daldy, 1869.)