regulation

Pluralregulations

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A rule or law issued by an organization to guide or direct how its members behave.

   The university introduced a regulation requiring all students to register by Friday.

   Employees who break these regulations may lose their jobs.

   Similarrule, directive, requirement

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act of controlling or managing something through rules, or the condition of being so controlled.

   Stricter regulation of the banking sector followed the financial crisis.

   The regulation of emissions has reduced pollution in many cities.

   Similarcontrol, oversight, supervision, governance

   Oppositederegulation

   Note

   The mass noun behind all the others, built from regulate plus -ion: the doing of regulating, not any single rule. It takes no plural and pairs with words of degree, as in more regulation, stricter regulation, light regulation. A rule you can count belongs to the countable 'rule' meaning. Once you can say "a regulation," you have left this sense.

3. 3
   nouncountable or uncountableplural

   A type of law created by the executive branch of government, usually under authority granted by a statute from the legislature.

   The environmental agency passed a regulation capping vehicle emissions.

   Courts upheld the regulation because the statute clearly authorized it.

   Similarrule

   Note

   Lawyers draw a line here between two kinds of law. A statute passes through the legislature, while a regulation comes from the executive under powers that a statute delegates. That dependence is what courts look to, because a regulation stands only as far as its enabling statute reaches. The word often appears in the plural, as in the regulations issued under an act, naming the whole body of such rules at once.

4. 4
   adjective

   Conforming to the official rules that apply in a given setting.

   The diving board sat at the regulation height above the pool.

   Officials checked that the goalposts met regulation width.

   Similarstandard, official, prescribed, approved

   Note

   A noun pressed into service as an adjective, meaning "as the rules require." It works before a noun, as in regulation height, and also after a verb, as in Thomas Wiseman's The Quick and the Dead (1969): "It is regulation that these directives are to be destroyed." It is not comparable, because something either is regulation or it is not. "More regulation" would be read as the noun.

   It is regulation that these directives are to be destroyed on receipt.

   The hat is regulation as well, I assume.

5. 5
   nouncountableplural

   A numbered provision within a body of law made by the executive branch of government.

   The inspector cited Regulation 9 when issuing the fine.

   Several regulations in the code address waste disposal directly.

   Similarprovision, rule

   Note

   Here the word narrows to a single numbered unit, cited the way a lawyer cites a section: Regulation 18B, regulation 2(h). The plural often names the whole instrument as a title (These Regulations extend to England and Wales), while the singular points to one provision inside it (this regulation). Regulation 18B, the 1939 power to intern suspected spies in wartime Britain, shows how a single number can become famous on its own.

6. 6
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The physiological process by which the body maintains a stable internal state, known as homeostasis.

   Hormonal regulation controls how the body responds to stress.

   The regulation of body temperature relies on sweating and shivering.

   Similarcontrol

   Note

   Physiology uses the word for the body keeping its own balance. Temperature, blood pH and glucose concentration are held within narrow working ranges despite changes outside. The word usually names what is being held steady, as in regulation of body temperature or blood-sugar regulation. It can also name what does the holding, as in hormonal regulation.

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The mechanism that controls DNA transcription, determining which genes are expressed and how strongly.

   Gene regulation allows a single genome to produce many different cell types.

   Errors in regulation can lead to cancer when genes stay switched on.

   Note

   A geneticist's word for control at the level of the gene. Transcription factors, promoters and enhancers together set the rate at which a particular gene is transcribed into RNA. It most often appears as gene regulation or regulation of transcription, and it becomes countable when researchers compare distinct mechanisms. Balance across the whole body is a different matter, covered by the physiological meaning.

8. 8
   noundialectalEuropean Unioncountable or uncountable

   A form of European Union legislative act that becomes law directly, without needing any further action by member states.

   The regulation took effect across the union the moment it was published.

   Unlike a directive, a regulation binds every member state without national legislation.

   Note

   European Union law gives the word a narrower meaning. Here a regulation is an act of the Union itself, binding as written in every member state, and nothing national stands between the text and the people it governs. That sets it apart from the executive-made national law, which rests on a statute passed by a domestic legislature. No member-state legislature takes part at all.

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