/ English Dictionary |
ORDAIN
Pronunciation (US): | (GB): |
I. (verb)
Verb forms
Present simple: I / you / we / they ordain ... he / she / it ordains
Past simple: ordained
-ing form: ordaining
Sense 1
Meaning:
Classified under:
Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing
Hypernyms (to "ordain" is one way to...):
decree (issue a decree)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "ordain"):
predestine (decree or determine beforehand)
will (decree or ordain)
designate; destine; doom; fate (decree or designate beforehand)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE
Derivation:
ordinance (a statute enacted by a city government)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Example:
he was ordained in the Church
Synonyms:
consecrate; ordain; order; ordinate
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Hypernyms (to "ordain" is one way to...):
enthrone; invest; vest (provide with power and authority)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody PP
Derivation:
ordainer (a cleric who ordains; a cleric who admits someone to holy orders)
ordinance (the act of ordaining; the act of conferring (or receiving) holy orders)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Invest with ministerial or priestly authority
Example:
The minister was ordained only last month
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Hypernyms (to "ordain" is one way to...):
enthrone; invest; vest (provide with power and authority)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s somebody
Derivation:
ordainer (a cleric who ordains; a cleric who admits someone to holy orders)
ordinance (the act of ordaining; the act of conferring (or receiving) holy orders)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Order by virtue of superior authority; decree
Example:
the legislature enacted this law in 1985
Synonyms:
enact; ordain
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Hypernyms (to "ordain" is one way to...):
decree (issue a decree)
Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "ordain"):
reenact (enact again)
legislate; pass (make laws, bills, etc. or bring into effect by legislation)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s that CLAUSE
Context examples:
Edward have got some business at Oxford, he says; so he must go there for a time; and after THAT, as soon as he can light upon a Bishop, he will be ordained.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
I, who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God's service—I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
There is now a spirit of improvement abroad; but among those who were ordained twenty, thirty, forty years ago, the larger number, to judge by their performance, must have thought reading was reading, and preaching was preaching.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)