law of the jungle noun1 •(figurative) A putative law dictating that one serves one's own interest to the extent that one can, in any situation where legal authority is absent or generally ignored; self-interested behaviour that emerges in the absence of law; lawlessness.In the next war there will be no international law or 'comity of nations' but merely the law of the jungle, and of primeval man—each for himself and the devil take the next man. — 1938
