Other forms: constitutions
A constitution is the founding document that sets out a country's deepest rules. The American Constitution, a written constitution, unconstitutional.
Britain is unusual in having no single written constitution: its rules are spread across statutes, court decisions and convention, which is why constitutional crisis is a phrase heard there so often. A constitution is also the rulebook of a club or organisation. And somebody's constitution is their physical make-up: a strong constitution, an iron constitution. Note constitutional, both the adjective and an old word for a walk taken for health.
1nounconstitutionThe founding document setting out a country's deepest rules.
“The constitution has been amended about twenty-seven times.”
2nounphysicalSomebody's physical make-up.
“She has a strong constitution and hardly ever catches a cold.”
constitution is a founding rulebook, or a physical make-up.
Latin constitutio comes from constituere, to set up — con- plus statuere, to establish, from stare, to stand. A constitution is what a state stands on, and the physical sense is the same idea applied to a body.
Proto-Indo-European
*steh₂-
Latin
cōnstitūtiō
Old French
constitucion
Middle English
constitucioun
English, today
constitution
Built from
From Middle English constitucioun, constitucion (“edict, law, ordinance, regulation, rule, statute; body of laws or rules, or customs; body of fundamental principles; principle or rule (of science); creation”) from Old French constitucion (modern French constitution), a learned borrowing from Latin cōnstitūtiō, cōnstitūtiōnem (“character, constitution, disposition, nature; definition; point in dispute; order, regulation; arrangement, system”), from cōnstituō (“to establish, set up; to confirm; to decide, resolve”). Equivalent to constitute + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA