Noun

(en noun)

A shrine dedicated to some prophetic deity.

* Milton:

The oracles are dumb; / No voice or hideous hum / Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.

A person such as a priest through whom the deity is supposed to respond with prophecy or advice.

A prophetic response, often enigmatic or allegorical, so given.

* Drayton:

Whatso'er she saith, for oracles must stand.

A person considered to be a source of wisdom.

a literary oracle

* Macaulay:

The country rectors thought him an oracle on points of learning.

* Tennyson:

oracles of mode

A wise sentence or decision of great authority.

One who communicates a divine command; an angel; a prophet.

* Milton:

God hath now sent his living oracle / Into the world to teach his final will.

(computing theory) A theoretical entity capable of answering some collection of questions.

(Jewish antiquity) The sanctuary, or most holy place in the temple; also, the temple itself.

* Milton:

Siloa's brook, that flow'd / Fast by the oracle of God.

* Bible , 1 Kings 6:19, King James Version:

And the oracle he prepared in the house within, to set there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.

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.