Noun

(en noun)

The act of dispensing or dealing out; distribution; often used of the distribution of good and evil by God to man, or more generically, of the acts and modes of his administration.

That which is dispensed, dealt out, or appointed; that which is enjoined or bestowed

A system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; scheme; economy; as, the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.

The relaxation of a law in a particular case; permission to do something forbidden, or to omit doing something enjoined; specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, exemption from some ecclesiastical law or obligation to God which a man has incurred of his own free will (oaths, vows, etc.).

Noun

(uncountable)   The act of regulating or the condition of being regulated.

(countable)   A law or administrative rule, issued by an organization, used to guide or prescribe the conduct of members of that organization.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-17

, author=George Monbiot, authorlink=George Monbiot , title=Money just makes the rich suffer , volume=188, issue=23, page=19 , magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) citation , passage=In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […]  The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.}}

* Army regulations state a soldier AWOL over 30 days is a deserter.

(European Union law) A form of legislative act which is self-effecting, and requires no further intervention by the Member States to become law.

(lb) Mechanism controlling DNA transcription.

(lb) Physiological process which consists in maintaining homoeostasis.