INSTITUTION • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Institution

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˌɪnstɪtˈuʃən/ Listen

noun

Institution n.

The act or process of instituting; as:

(a)

Establishment; foundation; enactment; as, the institution of a school. "The institution of God's law is described as being established by solemn injunction."

(b)

Instruction; education. (Obs.)

(c)

(Eccl. Law) The act or ceremony of investing a clergyman with the spiritual part of a benefice, by which the care of souls is committed to his charge.

That which instituted or established; as:

(a)

Established order, method, or custom; enactment; ordinance; permanent form of law or polity. "The nature of our people, Our city's institutions."

(b)

An established or organized society or corporation; an establishment, especially of a public character, or affecting a community; a foundation; as, a literary institution; a charitable institution; also, a building or the buildings occupied or used by such organization; as, the Smithsonian Institution.

(c)

Anything forming a characteristic and persistent feature in social or national life or habits. "We ordered a lunch (the most delightful of English institutions, next to dinner) to be ready against our return."

That which institutes or instructs; a textbook; a system of elements or rules; an institute. (Obs.) "There is another manuscript, of above three hundred years old,... being an institution of physic."

See images of 'Institution'

Etymology of 'Institution'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar

"Institution" Quotes from Famous Books

... beautiful sister-in-law Henrica, to Adrian, now a fine young man, who had graduated at the University and was soon to be admitted to the council. Belotti, after the death of the young girl's father, who had seen and blessed Anna again, went to Italy with her, where she lived as superior of a secular institution, where music ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... passion more imperious and merciless than the natural passions it comes to devour. This form of religion accordingly meets worldliness with mysticism. Holiness is not placed in conformity to a prescriptive law, in pursuit of a slightly regenerated bliss, nor in advancing a special institution and doctrine. Holiness for the mystic consists rather in universal mildness and insight; in freedom from all passion, bias, and illusion; in a disembodied wisdom which accepts the world, dominates its labyrinths, and is able to guide ...

— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... of management. What is paid for the keeping of bullion upon receipts, is alone supposed to amount to a neat annual revenue of between 150,000 and 200,000 guilders. Public utility, however, and not revenue, was the original object of this institution. Its object was to relieve the merchants from the inconvenience of a disadvantageous exchange. The revenue which has arisen from it was unforeseen, and may be considered as accidental. But it is now time to return from this long digression, into which I have been ...

— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... of his fat face wagged at Waters peremptorily; he quite obviously felt himself a spokesman for order and decency and the divinely ordained institution of "papers." ...

— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... he is certainly once guilty of calling fish the "finny tribe." He believed himself to be animated by an intense hatred of the Church of Rome, and disfigures many of his pages by Lawrence-Boythorn-like tirades against that institution; but no Catholic of sense need on this account deny himself the pleasure of reading Borrow, whose one dominating passion was camaraderie, and who hob-a-nobbed in the friendliest spirit with priest and gipsy in a fashion as far beyond praise as it is beyond description by any ...

— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

More quotes...