policies

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of policy.

   The government announced sweeping policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions.

   Many of the bank's lending policies were rewritten after the audit.

   Note

   Most often these are the rules a government or organization follows, or the documents that set those rules out. One plural has a life of its own. In Scotland, the policies of a large country house are its grounds, the gardens and parkland around it. That meaning lives in the plural, so a Scottish estate's policies may be something to walk through rather than something to follow.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of policy. The verb is rare.

   Note

   The verb behind this form means to regulate by laws or bring to order, and it is transitive: something is always being policied, such as an application or a set of relationships. The y-to-ies spelling makes it identical to the plural noun, so only the sentence tells them apart. A singular subject directly before the word, as in "the agency policies," marks the verb.

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