Noun

(label) The power to enforce rules or give orders.

* 1883 , (Howard Pyle), (The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood)

But in the meantime Robin Hood and his band lived quietly in Sherwood Forest, without showing their faces abroad, for Robin knew that it would not be wise for him to be seen in the neighborhood of Nottingham, those in authority being very wroth with him.

(label) Persons in command; specifically, government.

*{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny

, chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities . A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Legal highs: A new prescription , passage=No sooner has a [synthetic] drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one. These “legal highs” are sold for the few months it takes the authorities to identify and ban them, and then the cycle begins again.}}

(label) A person accepted as a source of reliable information on a subject.

* 1930 September 18, Albert Einstein, as quoted in Albert Einstein: Creator and Rebel (1988) by Banesh Hoffman

To punish me for my contempt of authority', Fate has made me an ' authority myself.

Noun

(en noun)

Any person that s or directs.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01

, author=Philip E. Mirowski , title=Harms to Health from the Pursuit of Profits , volume=100, issue=1, page=87 , magazine= citation , passage=In an era when political leaders promise deliverance from decline through America’s purported preeminence in scientific research, the news that science is in deep trouble in the United States has been as unwelcome as a diagnosis of leukemia following the loss of health insurance.}}

# One who goes first.

Follow the leader .

# One having authority to direct.

We elected her team leader .

# One who leads a political party or group of elected party members; sometimes used in titles.

# A person or organization that leads in a certain field in terms of excellence, success, etc.

The company is the leader in home remodeling in the county.

# (music) A performer who leads a band, choir, or a section of an orchestra.

# (music, UK) The first violin in a symphony orchestra; the concertmaster.

An animal that leads.

# The dominant animal in a pack of animals, such as wolves or lions.

#*

# An animal placed in advance of others, especially on a team of horse, oxen, or dogs.

#*

Something that leads or conducts.

# (botany) A fast-growing terminal shoot of a woody plant.

#*

# A pipe for conducting rain water from a roof to a cistern or to the ground.

# (UK) The first, or the principal, editorial article in a newspaper; a leading or main editorial article; a lead story.

# (fishing) A section of line between the main fishing line and the snell of a hook, intended to be more resistant to bites and harder for a fish to detect than the main fishing line.

# A piece of material at the beginning or end of a to allow the material to the threaded or fed onto something, as a reel of film onto a projector or a roll of paper onto a rotary printing press.

# (marketing) A loss leader or a popular product sold at a normal price.

# (printing) A type having a dot or short row of dots upon its face.

# (printing, in the plural) A row of dots, periods, or hyphens, used in tables of contents, etc., to lead the eye across a space to the right word or number.

# (fishing) A net for leading fish into a pound, weir, etc.

#*

# (mining) A branch or small vein, not important in itself, but indicating the proximity of a better one.

# (nautical) A block of hard wood pierced with suitable holes for leading ropes in their proper places.

# (engineering) The drive wheel in any kind of machinery.