institution
Pluralinstitutions
- 1An established organization founded for a particular purpose, especially in education, finance, public service, or charity.
The university remains one of the nation's most trusted institutions.
Founded in 1820, the charity grew into a national institution.
UsageOften named by its field: a financial institution (a bank), an academic institution, a public institution.
Similarorganization, foundation, body
- 2A custom or practice established within a society or community.
Trial by jury is a cherished institution of democratic societies.
Some social institutions, such as apprenticeship, have faded over time.
UsageOften the institution of + noun: the institution of marriage. Such customs are also called social institutions.
Similarcustom, practice, tradition, convention
Note
A society's settled ways, seen as something built: the word goes back through Old French to Latin instituō, "to set up." Marriage, trial by jury and apprenticeship count as institutions because they were established and then endured.
- 3A place, such as a mental hospital, care home, or prison, where people live to be cared for or are kept confined.
The court ordered that he be placed in a secure institution.
Conditions in these institutions were investigated by inspectors.
UsageUsually in an institution: placed in an institution, years spent in institutions.
- 4A place, business, or person that has been part of a community or field for so long that it seems a permanent, familiar feature.
The seaside café is something of a local institution.
Over the decades, the theater turned into a beloved institution.
UsageUsually hedged or warm: something of an institution, a local institution, a great old institution. Can sound joking in formal writing.
Note
Affectionate praise for a pub, café, shop or person that has been around so long it feels like a fixture. It often comes as something of an institution or a local institution, and it pairs easily with old: Giles Coren mourned the Wykeham Arms as "a great old English institution." It is most at home in conversation and journalism.
- 5
- 6The act of establishing or introducing something, such as a law, custom, or system.
The institution of the new tax sparked widespread protest.
Reformers pushed for the institution of free public schooling.
UsageUsually the institution of something new: the institution of a tax, of free schooling.
Similarintroduction, establishment, creation, founding, adoption
Oppositeabolition, repeal, elimination
Note
Here the word names an action, not the thing that results: James George Frazer, in The Golden Bough, asks what motives "led to its institution." The frame institution of plus a noun is shared with the custom sense, so read the context. The institution of marriage usually means marriage itself, while the institution of higher speed limits means bringing them in.
Less common meanings
- 7A textbook or systematic body of elements or rules, especially one used for instruction.
Note
An obsolete teaching sense that stays close to the old meaning of institute, "to instruct": an institution was a book that set out the elements of a subject in order. Thomas Norton's 1561 English translation of Calvin's Institutes, for example, was called The Institution of Christian Religion. Readers meet the singular in this sense only in older prose, and it should not be used today.
- 8The act by which a bishop commits the spiritual care of a parish to a priest.
Practice
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Origin
Latin instituō ("to set up"), made of in- ("in, on") and statuō ("to set up, establish"), produced the noun institūtiō, which reached English by way of Old French and Middle English institucioun. It amounts to "institute" plus "-ion."