unlawfully
adv.in a way that is against the law. You use this to describe actions that are illegal or not allowed by official rules.
adv.in a manner that contravenes established law or legal statutes. Often used in legal or formal contexts to describe prohibited actions.
“The company was accused of unlawfully sharing private data.”
“The court ruled that the evidence had been obtained unlawfully and could not be used during the trial.”
“The investigation revealed that the former executive had unlawfully diverted millions of dollars into offshore accounts to avoid paying corporate taxes.”
Typically follows the verb it modifies or appears at the end of the clause.
Unlawfully is an adverb and must modify a verb or action, not a person or state of being directly.
“It is behind only a €1.2bn ($1.4bn) fine imposed on Meta by Ireland in 2023 for unlawfully transferring European Facebook users’ data to the United States.”
From unlawful + -ly or un- + lawfully.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.