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Anarchy vs Chaos vs Lawlessness

Anarchy, chaos and lawlessness all denote in common absence, suspension, breakdown, or widespread defiance of government, law, and order.

Anarchy is the total absence or suspension of government.

  • by the adoption of the Constitution our country passed from weakness to strength, from anarchy to order, from death to life
    Muzzey

Chaos is the utter negation of order.

  • a process calculated to reduce the orderly life of our complicated societies to chaos
    Huxley 

Lawlessness signifies a prevalent or habitual disregard of law and order rather than their absence or suspension.

  • the traditional lawlessness of the frontier community

When anarchy and lawlessness (or their adjectives) are used of actions rather than of a state of things, there is often little distinction of meaning.

  • the hydrogen atom was not conforming to the canons of the classical music of physics, and yet it was not anarchic in the least, for . . . it was flawlessly obeying the laws of a different music
    Darrow
  • illusion is not lawless. It is a world apart, if you please, but within it are its own necessities, which exact inexorable adherence to their mandates
    Lowes