Other forms: policies
A policy is the rule an organisation has decided to follow, written down and applied to everybody. The refunds policy taped up beside the till, the school's phone policy, a government's policy on housing.
It works at every size — company policy on holidays, foreign policy, a party's policy on tax — and it takes ON for the subject it covers: a policy on smoking. There is a second use that looks unrelated: in insurance, your policy is the contract itself, the document with your name and your cover on it, and you pay a premium to keep it running. Keep it apart from a law: a policy can be rewritten by whoever wrote it in an afternoon, a law cannot. It is also not the word police, though the two share a grandparent. And in honesty is the best policy, policy means the wisest way to act.
1nounpolicyAn official plan or set of rules a government, company or organisation has decided to follow.~87%
“The company changed its policy on working from home.”
synonyms: guidelines, line
2nouninsuranceAn insurance contract, and the document setting out what it covers.~11%
“Check whether your travel policy covers skiing.”
3nounsensibleA sensible course of action that someone chooses to follow.~2%
“Saying nothing until you have the facts is a sound policy.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 9 sentences found in the wild and placed 9 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
policy is an official plan.
Policy came through Middle English policie and Old French from Latin polītīa, 'citizenship, government', which is the Greek πολιτεία, from πολίτης, 'a citizen'. It starts, then, with the running of a city by the people who live in it. Police, polis and polity are the same word wearing different clothes.
Ancient Greek
πολιτεία — citizenship; polis, (city) state; government
Latin
polītīa
Old French
policie
Middle English
policie
English, today
policy
Built from
From Middle English policie, from Old French policie, pollicie and police, from Latin - politia (“citizenship; government”), classical Latin polītīa (in Cicero), from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (“citizenship; polis, (city) state; government”), from πολίτης (“citizen”). a doublet of police and polis and polity.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA