ordination

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the ceremony or process by which someone is officially made a priest, minister, or other religious leader

   Her ordination as a priest took place in the cathedral.

2. 2
   noun

   the formal or technical arrangement of things in an ordered sequence or system

   The ecologists used ordination to display relationships among the survey sites.

From Middle French ordination, from Latin ordinatio ('arrangement, setting in order'), from ordinare ('to arrange, appoint'), based on ordo ('order, rank'). Appointment to an ecclesiastical order produced the religious ceremony sense; technical ordering senses preserve the older idea of arrangement.

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