INSTITUTION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Institution

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/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."

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Etymology of 'Institution'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Institution" Quotes from Famous Books

... born, the ax with which he split the rails, the few books with which he got the rudiments of an education, the light of pine knots by which he studied, the flatboat on which he made the long trip to New Orleans, the slave mart at sight of which his sympathetic soul revolted against the institution of human slavery—these are all fraught with intense interest as the rude forces by which he slowly builded ...

— Life of Abraham Lincoln - Little Blue Book Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 324 • John Hugh Bowers

... look to the sequence of history being kept up in the sequence of the story, we find ourselves thrown out. A character which fits one person puts on the marks of another: a likeness which we identify with one real person passes into the likeness of some one else. The real, in person, incident, institution, shades off into the ideal; after showing itself by plain tokens, it turns aside out of its actual path of fact, and ends, as the poet thinks it ought to end, in victory or defeat, glory or failure. Prince Arthur passes from Leicester to Sidney, and then back again to Leicester. ...

— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church

... It's none of my business. The closed classes are an ancient and respected institution. What goes on in them is quite possibly of a religious nature. But that's only a guess. Whatever it is, it's none of my business. Nor is it yours, young ...

— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... of the next letter was an institution of the New York East Side in which Mark Twain was deeply interested. The children were most, if not all, of Hebrew parentage, and the performances they gave, under the direction of Alice M. Herts, were really remarkable. It seemed a pity that lack ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... partial and unhappy exceptions, has enjoyed ten years of peace, during which all her Governments, what ever the theory of their constitutions may have been, are successively taught to feel that the end of their institution is the happiness of the people, and that the exercise of power among men can be justified only by the blessings it confers upon those over whom it ...

— State of the Union Addresses of John Quincy Adams • John Quincy Adams

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