Order \Or"der\, n. [OE. ordre, F. ordre, fr. L. ordo, ordinis.
Cf. Ordain, Ordinal.]
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1. Regular arrangement; any methodical or established
succession or harmonious relation; method; system; as:
(a) Of material things, like the books in a library.
(b) Of intellectual notions or ideas, like the topics of a
discource.
(c) Of periods of time or occurrences, and the like.
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The side chambers were . . . thirty in order.
--Ezek. xli.
6.
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Bright-harnessed angels sit in order
serviceable. --Milton.
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Good order is the foundation of all good things.
--Burke.
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2. Right arrangement; a normal, correct, or fit condition;
as, the house is in order; the machinery is out of order.
--Locke.
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3. The customary mode of procedure; established system, as in
the conduct of debates or the transaction of business;
usage; custom; fashion. --Dantiel.
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And, pregnant with his grander thought,
Brought the old order into doubt. --Emerson.
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4. Conformity with law or decorum; freedom from disturbance;
general tranquillity; public quiet; as, to preserve order
in a community or an assembly.
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5. That which prescribes a method of procedure; a rule or
regulation made by competent authority; as, the rules and
orders of the senate.
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The church hath authority to establish that for an
order at one time which at another time it may
abolish. --Hooker.
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6. A command; a mandate; a precept; a direction.
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Upon this new fright, an order was made by both
houses for disarming all the papists in England.
--Clarendon.
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7. Hence: A commission to purchase, sell, or supply goods; a
direction, in writing, to pay money, to furnish supplies,
to admit to a building, a place of entertainment, or the
like; as, orders for blankets are large.
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In those days were pit orders -- beshrew the
uncomfortable manager who abolished them. --Lamb.
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8. A number of things or persons arranged in a fixed or
suitable place, or relative position; a rank; a row; a
grade; especially, a rank or class in society; a group or
division of men in the same social or other position;
also, a distinct character, kind, or sort; as, the higher
or lower orders of society; talent of a high order.
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They are in equal order to their several ends.
--Jer. Taylor.
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Various orders various ensigns bear. --Granville.
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Which, to his order of mind, must have seemed little
short of crime. --Hawthorne.
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9. A body of persons having some common honorary distinction
or rule of obligation; esp., a body of religious persons
or aggregate of convents living under a common rule; as,
the Order of the Bath; the Franciscan order.
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Find a barefoot brother out,
One of our order, to associate me. --Shak.
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The venerable order of the Knights Templars. --Sir
W. Scott.
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10. An ecclesiastical grade or rank, as of deacon, priest, or
bishop; the office of the Christian ministry; -- often
used in the plural; as, to take orders, or to take holy
orders, that is, to enter some grade of the ministry.
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11. (Arch.) The disposition of a column and its component
parts, and of the entablature resting upon it, in
classical architecture; hence (as the column and
entablature are the characteristic features of classical
architecture) a style or manner of architectural
designing.
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Note: The Greeks used three different orders, easy to
distinguish, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Romans
added the Tuscan, and changed the Doric so that it is
hardly recognizable, and also used a modified
Corinthian called Composite. The Renaissance writers on
architecture recognized five orders as orthodox or
classical, -- Doric (the Roman sort), Ionic, Tuscan,
Corinthian, and Composite. See Illust. of Capital.
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12. (Nat. Hist.) An assemblage of genera having certain
important characters in common; as, the Carnivora and
Insectivora are orders of Mammalia.
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Note: The Linnaean artificial orders of plants rested mainly
on identity in the numer of pistils, or agreement in
some one character. Natural orders are groups of genera
agreeing in the fundamental plan of their flowers and
fruit. A natural order is usually (in botany)
equivalent to a family, and may include several tribes.
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13. (Rhet.) The placing of words and members in a sentence in
such a manner as to contribute to force and beauty or
clearness of expression.
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14. (Math.) Rank; degree; thus, the order of a curve or
surface is the same as the degree of its equation.
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Artificial order or Artificial system. See Artificial
classification, under Artificial, and Note to def. 12
above.
Close order (Mil.), the arrangement of the ranks with a
distance of about half a pace between them; with a
distance of about three yards the ranks are in open
order.
The four Orders, The Orders four, the four orders of
mendicant friars. See Friar. --Chaucer.
General orders (Mil.), orders issued which concern the
whole command, or the troops generally, in distinction
from special orders.
Holy orders.
(a) (Eccl.) The different grades of the Christian
ministry; ordination to the ministry. See def. 10
above.
(b) (R. C. Ch.) A sacrament for the purpose of conferring
a special grace on those ordained.
In order to, for the purpose of; to the end; as means to.
The best knowledge is that which is of greatest use
in order to our eternal happiness. --Tillotson.
Minor orders (R. C. Ch.), orders beneath the diaconate in
sacramental dignity, as acolyte, exorcist, reader,
doorkeeper.
Money order. See under Money.
Natural order. (Bot.) See def. 12, Note.
Order book.
(a) A merchant's book in which orders are entered.
(b) (Mil.) A book kept at headquarters, in which all
orders are recorded for the information of officers
and men.
(c) A book in the House of Commons in which proposed
orders must be entered. [Eng.]
Order in Council, a royal order issued with and by the
advice of the Privy Council. [Great Britain]
Order of battle (Mil.), the particular disposition given to
the troops of an army on the field of battle.
Order of the day, in legislative bodies, the special
business appointed for a specified day.
Order of a differential equation (Math.), the greatest
index of differentiation in the equation.
Sailing orders (Naut.), the final instructions given to the
commander of a ship of war before a cruise.
Sealed orders, orders sealed, and not to be opened until a
certain time, or arrival at a certain place, as after a
ship is at sea.
Standing order.
(a) A continuing regulation for the conduct of
parliamentary business.
(b) (Mil.) An order not subject to change by an officer
temporarily in command.
To give order, to give command or directions. --Shak.
To take order for, to take charge of; to make arrangements
concerning.
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Whiles I take order for mine own affairs. --Shak.
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Syn: Arrangement; management. See Direction.
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Natural \Nat"u*ral\ (?; 135), a. [OE. naturel, F. naturel, fr.
L. naturalis, fr. natura. See Nature.]
1. Fixed or determined by nature; pertaining to the
constitution of a thing; belonging to native character;
according to nature; essential; characteristic; innate;
not artificial, foreign, assumed, put on, or acquired; as,
the natural growth of animals or plants; the natural
motion of a gravitating body; natural strength or
disposition; the natural heat of the body; natural color.
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With strong natural sense, and rare force of will.
--Macaulay.
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2. Conformed to the order, laws, or actual facts, of nature;
consonant to the methods of nature; according to the
stated course of things, or in accordance with the laws
which govern events, feelings, etc.; not exceptional or
violent; legitimate; normal; regular; as, the natural
consequence of crime; a natural death; anger is a natural
response to insult.
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What can be more natural than the circumstances in
the behavior of those women who had lost their
husbands on this fatal day? --Addison.
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3. Having to do with existing system to things; dealing with,
or derived from, the creation, or the world of matter and
mind, as known by man; within the scope of human reason or
experience; not supernatural; as, a natural law; natural
science; history, theology.
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I call that natural religion which men might know .
. . by the mere principles of reason, improved by
consideration and experience, without the help of
revelation. --Bp. Wilkins.
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4. Conformed to truth or reality; as:
(a) Springing from true sentiment; not artificial or
exaggerated; -- said of action, delivery, etc.; as, a
natural gesture, tone, etc.
(b) Resembling the object imitated; true to nature;
according to the life; -- said of anything copied or
imitated; as, a portrait is natural.
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5. Having the character or sentiments properly belonging to
one's position; not unnatural in feelings.
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To leave his wife, to leave his babes, . . .
He wants the natural touch. --Shak.
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6. Connected by the ties of consanguinity. especially,
Related by birth rather than by adoption; as, one's
natural mother. "Natural friends." --J. H. Newman.
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7. Hence: Begotten without the sanction of law; born out of
wedlock; illegitimate; bastard; as, a natural child.
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8. Of or pertaining to the lower or animal nature, as
contrasted with the higher or moral powers, or that which
is spiritual; being in a state of nature; unregenerate.
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The natural man receiveth not the things of the
Spirit of God. --1 Cor. ii.
14.
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9. (Math.) Belonging to, to be taken in, or referred to, some
system, in which the base is 1; -- said of certain
functions or numbers; as, natural numbers, those
commencing at 1; natural sines, cosines, etc., those taken
in arcs whose radii are 1.
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10. (Mus.)
(a) Produced by natural organs, as those of the human
throat, in distinction from instrumental music.
(b) Of or pertaining to a key which has neither a flat
nor a sharp for its signature, as the key of C major.
(c) Applied to an air or modulation of harmony which
moves by easy and smooth transitions, digressing but
little from the original key.
(d) Neither flat nor sharp; -- of a tone.
(e) Changed to the pitch which is neither flat nor sharp,
by appending the sign [natural]; as, A natural.
--Moore (Encyc. of Music).
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11. Existing in nature or created by the forces of nature, in
contrast to production by man; not made, manufactured, or
processed by humans; as, a natural ruby; a natural
bridge; natural fibers; a deposit of natural calcium
sulfate. Opposed to artificial, man-made,
manufactured, processed and synthetic. [WordNet
sense 2]
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12. Hence: Not processed or refined; in the same statre as
that existing in nature; as, natural wood; natural foods.
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Natural day, the space of twenty-four hours. --Chaucer.
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Natural fats, Natural gas, etc. See under Fat, Gas.
etc.
Natural Harmony (Mus.), the harmony of the triad or common
chord.
Natural history, in its broadest sense, a history or
description of nature as a whole, including the sciences
of botany, Zoology, geology, mineralogy,
paleontology, chemistry, and physics. In recent
usage the term is often restricted to the sciences of
botany and Zoology collectively, and sometimes to the
science of zoology alone.
Natural law, that instinctive sense of justice and of right
and wrong, which is native in mankind, as distinguished
from specifically revealed divine law, and formulated
human law.
Natural modulation (Mus.), transition from one key to its
relative keys.
Natural order. (Nat. Hist.) See under order.
Natural person. (Law) See under person, n.
Natural philosophy, originally, the study of nature in
general; the natural sciences; in modern usage, that
branch of physical science, commonly called physics,
which treats of the phenomena and laws of matter and
considers those effects only which are unaccompanied by
any change of a chemical nature; -- contrasted with
mental philosophy and moral philosophy.
Natural scale (Mus.), a scale which is written without
flats or sharps.
Note: Model would be a preferable term, as less likely to
mislead, the so-called artificial scales (scales
represented by the use of flats and sharps) being
equally natural with the so-called natural scale.
Natural science, the study of objects and phenomena
existing in nature, especially biology, chemistry, physics
and their interdisciplinary related sciences; natural
history, in its broadest sense; -- used especially in
contradistinction to social science, mathematics,
philosophy, mental science or moral science.
Natural selection (Biol.), the operation of natural laws
analogous, in their operation and results, to designed
selection in breeding plants and animals, and resulting in
the survival of the fittest; the elimination over time of
species unable to compete in specific environments with
other species more adapted to survival; -- the essential
mechanism of evolution. The principle of natural selection
is neutral with respect to the mechanism by which
inheritable changes occur in organisms (most commonly
thought to be due to mutation of genes and reorganization
of genomes), but proposes that those forms which have
become so modified as to be better adapted to the existing
environment have tended to survive and leave similarly
adapted descendants, while those less perfectly adapted
have tended to die out through lack of fitness for the
environment, thus resulting in the survival of the
fittest. See Darwinism.
Natural system (Bot. & Zool.), a classification based upon
real affinities, as shown in the structure of all parts of
the organisms, and by their embryology.
It should be borne in mind that the natural system
of botany is natural only in the constitution of its
genera, tribes, orders, etc., and in its grand
divisions. --Gray.
Natural theology, or Natural religion, that part of
theological science which treats of those evidences of the
existence and attributes of the Supreme Being which are
exhibited in nature; -- distinguished from revealed
religion. See Quotation under Natural, a., 3.
Natural vowel, the vowel sound heard in urn, furl, sir,
her, etc.; -- so called as being uttered in the easiest
open position of the mouth organs. See Neutral vowel,
under Neutral and Guide to Pronunciation, [sect] 17.
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Syn: See Native.
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