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dispensation

UK/dɪsˌpɛnˈseɪʃən/
nounC2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,550 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: dispensations

A dispensation is special permission to be released from a rule. A papal dispensation, granted a dispensation, seek a dispensation.

The church sense is the original and the strictest, where a dispensation lifts a requirement of canon law for one person. In ordinary use it means any official exception, and it always has to be granted rather than taken.

Definitions of dispensation

  1. 1noundispensationSpecial permission to be released from a rule.C2

    “The couple received a special dispensation to marry in the cathedral.”

dispensation is a permission.

Where it comes from

Latin dispensatio means a weighing out, from dispensare, to weigh out or manage.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *(s)pend-

  2. Latin

    dispensātiō

  3. Old French

    despensacion

  4. Middle English

    dispensacioun

  5. English, today

    dispensation

From Middle English dispensacioun, from Old French despensacion, from Latin dispensātiō. by surface analysis, dispens(e) + dispense + ation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

dispensation in the wild

  • In the jurisprudence of the canon law of the Catholic Church, a dispensation is the exemption from the immediate obligation of the law in certain cases.

    Dispensation (Catholic canon law)

  • Validation involves the removal of a canonical impediment, or its dispensation, or the removal of defective consent.

    Validation of marriage

  • In 2019, he requested dispensation from the clerical state.

    Jonathan Morris (commentator)

  • In theology, one meaning of the term dispensation is as a distinctive arrangement or period in history that forms the framework through which God relates to mankind.

    Dispensation (theology)

  • As homage to the deaths of these martyrs, Polish Dominican friars were given special dispensation allowing the usage of red belts in their habits.

    Sadok and 48 Dominican martyrs from Sandomierz

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.