ordain

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   appoint to a clerical posts

   I was ordained in the Temple.

2. 2
   verb

   invest with ministerial or priestly authority

   The minister was ordained only last month

3. 3
   verb

   To prearrange unalterably.

   What if the Foot, ordain'd the duſt to tread, / Or Hand, to toil, aſpir'd to be the Head? / What if the Head, the Eye, or Ear repin'd / To ſerve mere Engines to the ruling Mind?

4. 4
   verb

   To decree.

   On once more we swung, bumping uneasily along in the antique narrow-gauge coach, with gloomy woods and gathering night outside, shouts and songs (and quacks) inside—this was not at all the sort of train ordained by the logical strategists in Paris—then grinding to a stop at a mysterious halt which was no more than a nameboard in the pinewoods, without even a footpath leading to it, but nevertheless with a solitary passenger stolidly waiting.

5. 5
   verb

   issue an order

6. 6
   verb

   order by virtue of superior authority

7. 7
   verb

   To admit into the ministry, for example as a priest, bishop, minister or Buddhist monk, or to authorize as a rabbi.

8. 8
   verb

   To predestine.

Etymology

From Middle English ordeynen, from Old French ordiner, from Latin ordinare (“to order”), from ordo (“order”). Doublet of ordinate.