(often plural) a command given by a superior (e.g., a military or law enforcement officer) that must be obeyed
<noun.communication> the British ships dropped anchor and waited for orders from London
a degree in a continuum of size or quantity
<noun.attribute> it was on the order of a mile an explosion of a low order of magnitude
established customary state (especially of society)
<noun.state> order ruled in the streets law and order
logical or comprehensible arrangement of separate elements
<noun.group> we shall consider these questions in the inverse order of their presentation
a condition of regular or proper arrangement
<noun.state> he put his desk in order the machine is now in working order
a legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge)
<noun.communication> a friend in New Mexico said that the order caused no trouble out there
a commercial document used to request someone to supply something in return for payment and providing specifications and quantities
<noun.communication> IBM received an order for a hundred computers
a formal association of people with similar interests
<noun.group> he joined a golf club they formed a small lunch society men from the fraternal order will staff the soup kitchen today
a body of rules followed by an assembly
<noun.communication>
(usually plural) the status or rank or office of a Christian clergyman in an ecclesiastical hierarchy
<noun.state> theologians still disagree over whether `bishop' should or should not be a separate Order
a group of person living under a religious rule
<noun.group> the order of Saint Benedict
(biology) taxonomic group containing one or more families
<noun.group>
a request for something to be made, supplied, or served
<noun.communication> I gave the waiter my order the company's products were in such demand that they got more orders than their call center could handle
(architecture) one of original three styles of Greek architecture distinguished by the type of column and entablature used or a style developed from the original three by the Romans
<noun.attribute>
the act of putting things in a sequential arrangement
<noun.act> there were mistakes in the ordering of items on the list [ verb ]
give instructions to or direct somebody to do something with authority
Order \Or"der\, n. [OE. ordre, F. ordre, fr. L. ordo, ordinis. Cf. {Ordain}, {Ordinal}.] 1. Regular arrangement; any methodical or established succession or harmonious relation; method; system; as: (a) Of material things, like the books in a library. (b) Of intellectual notions or ideas, like the topics of a discource. (c) Of periods of time or occurrences, and the like.
The side chambers were . . . thirty in order. --Ezek. xli. 6.
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable. --Milton.
Good order is the foundation of all good things. --Burke.
2. Right arrangement; a normal, correct, or fit condition; as, the house is in order; the machinery is out of order. --Locke.
3. The customary mode of procedure; established system, as in the conduct of debates or the transaction of business; usage; custom; fashion. --Dantiel.
And, pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into doubt. --Emerson.
4. Conformity with law or decorum; freedom from disturbance; general tranquillity; public quiet; as, to preserve order in a community or an assembly.
5. That which prescribes a method of procedure; a rule or regulation made by competent authority; as, the rules and orders of the senate.
The church hath authority to establish that for an order at one time which at another time it may abolish. --Hooker.
6. A command; a mandate; a precept; a direction.
Upon this new fright, an order was made by both houses for disarming all the papists in England. --Clarendon.
7. Hence: A commission to purchase, sell, or supply goods; a direction, in writing, to pay money, to furnish supplies, to admit to a building, a place of entertainment, or the like; as, orders for blankets are large.
In those days were pit orders -- beshrew the uncomfortable manager who abolished them. --Lamb.
8. A number of things or persons arranged in a fixed or suitable place, or relative position; a rank; a row; a grade; especially, a rank or class in society; a group or division of men in the same social or other position; also, a distinct character, kind, or sort; as, the higher or lower orders of society; talent of a high order.
They are in equal order to their several ends. --Jer. Taylor.
Various orders various ensigns bear. --Granville.
Which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little short of crime. --Hawthorne.
9. A body of persons having some common honorary distinction or rule of obligation; esp., a body of religious persons or aggregate of convents living under a common rule; as, the Order of the Bath; the Franciscan order.
Find a barefoot brother out, One of our order, to associate me. --Shak.
The venerable order of the Knights Templars. --Sir W. Scott.
10. An ecclesiastical grade or rank, as of deacon, priest, or bishop; the office of the Christian ministry; -- often used in the plural; as, to take orders, or to take holy orders, that is, to enter some grade of the ministry.
11. (Arch.) The disposition of a column and its component parts, and of the entablature resting upon it, in classical architecture; hence (as the column and entablature are the characteristic features of classical architecture) a style or manner of architectural designing.
Note: The Greeks used three different orders, easy to distinguish, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Romans added the Tuscan, and changed the Doric so that it is hardly recognizable, and also used a modified Corinthian called Composite. The Renaissance writers on architecture recognized five orders as orthodox or classical, -- Doric (the Roman sort), Ionic, Tuscan, Corinthian, and Composite. See Illust. of {Capital}.
12. (Nat. Hist.) An assemblage of genera having certain important characters in common; as, the Carnivora and Insectivora are orders of Mammalia.
Note: The Linn[ae]an artificial orders of plants rested mainly on identity in the numer of pistils, or agreement in some one character. Natural orders are groups of genera agreeing in the fundamental plan of their flowers and fruit. A natural order is usually (in botany) equivalent to a family, and may include several tribes.
13. (Rhet.) The placing of words and members in a sentence in such a manner as to contribute to force and beauty or clearness of expression.
14. (Math.) Rank; degree; thus, the order of a curve or surface is the same as the degree of its equation.
{Artificial order} or {Artificial system}. See {Artificial classification}, under {Artificial}, and Note to def. 12 above.
{Close order} (Mil.), the arrangement of the ranks with a distance of about half a pace between them; with a distance of about three yards the ranks are in {open order}.
{The four Orders}, {The Orders four}, the four orders of mendicant friars. See {Friar}. --Chaucer.
{General orders} (Mil.), orders issued which concern the whole command, or the troops generally, in distinction from {special orders}.
{Holy orders}. (a) (Eccl.) The different grades of the Christian ministry; ordination to the ministry. See def. 10 above. (b) (R. C. Ch.) A sacrament for the purpose of conferring a special grace on those ordained.
{In order to}, for the purpose of; to the end; as means to.
The best knowledge is that which is of greatest use in order to our eternal happiness. --Tillotson.
{Minor orders} (R. C. Ch.), orders beneath the diaconate in sacramental dignity, as acolyte, exorcist, reader, doorkeeper.
{Money order}. See under {Money}.
{Natural order}. (Bot.) See def. 12, Note.
{Order book}. (a) A merchant's book in which orders are entered. (b) (Mil.) A book kept at headquarters, in which all orders are recorded for the information of officers and men. (c) A book in the House of Commons in which proposed orders must be entered. [Eng.]
{Order in Council}, a royal order issued with and by the advice of the Privy Council. [Great Britain]
{Order of battle} (Mil.), the particular disposition given to the troops of an army on the field of battle.
{Order of the day}, in legislative bodies, the special business appointed for a specified day.
{Order of a differential equation} (Math.), the greatest index of differentiation in the equation.
{Sailing orders} (Naut.), the final instructions given to the commander of a ship of war before a cruise.
{Sealed orders}, orders sealed, and not to be opened until a certain time, or arrival at a certain place, as after a ship is at sea.
{Standing order}. (a) A continuing regulation for the conduct of parliamentary business. (b) (Mil.) An order not subject to change by an officer temporarily in command.
{To give order}, to give command or directions. --Shak.
{To take order for}, to take charge of; to make arrangements concerning.
Whiles I take order for mine own affairs. --Shak.
Syn: Arrangement; management. See {Direction}.
Order \Or"der\, v. i. To give orders; to issue commands.
Order \Or"der\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Ordered}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Ordering}.] [From {Order}, n.] 1. To put in order; to reduce to a methodical arrangement; to arrange in a series, or with reference to an end. Hence, to regulate; to dispose; to direct; to rule.
To him that ordereth his conversation aright. --Ps. 1. 23.
Warriors old with ordered spear and shield. --Milton.
2. To give an order to; to command; as, to order troops to advance.
3. To give an order for; to secure by an order; as, to order a carriage; to order groceries.
4. (Eccl.) To admit to holy orders; to ordain; to receive into the ranks of the ministry.
These ordered folk be especially titled to God. --Chaucer.
Persons presented to be ordered deacons. --Bk. of Com. Prayer.
{Order arms} (Mil.), the command at which a rifle is brought to a position with its butt resting on the ground; also, the position taken at such a command.
Series \Se"ries\, n. [L. series, fr. serere, sertum, to join or bind together; cf. Gr. ??? to fasten, Skr. sarit thread. Cf. {Assert}, {Desert} a solitude, {Exert}, {Insert}, {Seraglio}.] 1. A number of things or events standing or succeeding in order, and connected by a like relation; sequence; order; course; a succession of things; as, a continuous series of calamitous events.
During some years his life a series of triumphs. --Macaulay.
2. (Biol.) Any comprehensive group of animals or plants including several subordinate related groups.
Note: Sometimes a series includes several classes; sometimes only orders or families; in other cases only species.
3. (Bot.) In Engler's system of plant classification, a group of families showing certain structural or morphological relationships. It corresponds to the {cohort} of some writers, and to the {order} of many modern systematists. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
4. (Math.) An indefinite number of terms succeeding one another, each of which is derived from one or more of the preceding by a fixed law, called the law of the series; as, an arithmetical series; a geometrical series.
5. (Elec.) A mode of arranging the separate parts of a circuit by connecting them successively end to end to form a single path for the current; -- opposed to {parallel}. The parts so arranged are said to be
{in series}. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
6. (Com.) A parcel of rough diamonds of assorted qualities. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
Authorities last week issued a vacate order for a club in Manhattan and closed another in the Bronx.
The new order was much broader and appeared directed at the millions of factories and commercial companies that have sprung up outside the state plan during a decade of economic reform.
The testing is the result of an executive order by President Reagan two years ago directing the government to produce a drug-free workplace.
"I guess it's the excitement, it's like a dream car," said Mrs. Miller, 49, who owns two other Corvettes and has had her order in for a ZR-1 since July 24.
Separately, Duke said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a preliminary order prohibiting Duke from recovering the abandonment costs on the two plants in the rates that it charges its partners in the Catawba Nuclear Station.
Some of OPEC's poorer members, such as Algeria, would like the Saudis and some other major producers to cut back on production immediately in order to help firm up prices.
Delvalle fired military strongman Manuel Antonio Noriega last Thursday but the defense chief ignored the order and rallied his allies in the National Assembly against the president.
"I was stunned at the order reversing the forfeiture," James Deichert, chief of the Justice Department's organized crime strike force in Atlanta, told a panel of 12 senators hearing evidence against Hastings.
A group of gay guests, he says, raises the danger "of threatening order" at the facility by causing other guests too much anxiety.
That alone is a fairly tall order, however.
Sullivan assured panel members that he is putting the FDA's house in order, restructuring its management and adding resources in the wake of the generic drug fraud and corruption scandal.
If the waiver is denied, any member on the floor can raise a point of order to delete the offending section.
It is a tall order, but it is more palatable than the international humiliation and Somali suffering which would follow withdrawal.
EPA is under congressional order to have 175 underway by this October.
Radio Caritas news director Benjamin Fernandez said the order from ANTELCO's department of radio communications limits how far the station can broadcast.
You remembered not just in order to remember, but in order to write.
You remembered not just in order to remember, but in order to write.
Jury nullification means a jury can also ignore a judge's instructions in order to convict an unpopular defendant for his views, not for what he did.
Like most Moscow intellectuals, he already has got used to the idea that just about anything non-pornographic that isn't an outright attack on established order can be safely printed in this country now.
The U.S. attorney for Minnesota said the indictment charges a former Sealed Air unit with illegally exporting 434 drums of an anti-corrosion chemical to Libya in April 1986, in violation of an executive order issued earlier that year.
A Nov. 1 order signed by Circuit Judge William Howell found Siegel in contempt of a 1986 ruling that he make the connection. Howell gave Siegel 60 days to hook up or go to prison.
He said required stricter controls were needed to ensure order, the agency reported.
Amdahl officials declined to break out the company's shipments or order backlog.
Mr. Stubblefield sought damages of more than $6 million and wanted the court to order Endotronics to register his 195,250 shares in the company so he could sell them before the end of a two-year holding period.
The order, announced Thursday, includes five 747-400 jumbo jets; one 747-200F, a jumbo freighter; four widebody 767s; 13 midsized 757s; and 13 737-300s, a smaller twinjet.
Although he wouldn't specify the size of the order, he said it "wasn't beyond the range of an ordinary operation," adding that 200 to 300 contracts isn't unusual.
Mautner's office said the district attorney may seek the order as early as Wednesday.
Dougherty ruled in June 1985 that the state had to fully fund programs mandated by the Legislature for people with chronic mental illness, and the order was affirmed in March 1989 by the Arizona Supreme Court.
Dell pioneered mail order sales and has enjoyed explosive growth even as larger competitors stalled.
"This is in order to have quick decisions and get more ideas, more energetic work from the staff," said Akikazu Kida, a Toyota spokesman in New York.