October 2005: ORDINANCE

Ordinance

Noun
Example: The ordinance forbids fireworks inside the city boundary.

Meaning: Law, rule, regulation, statute, bylaw; command, decree, edict, cannon, flat, dictum, order, enactment, writ, mandate, commandment, bull. Note: don’t confuse the word with the military “Ordnance”.

Origin: Latin ordo, row, series, rank, arrangement, gives us order, and orderly: Referring to conditions in which everything is in its proper row or arrangement (a religious order is a grade or rank of clergymen); ordinary, literally according to or of the established or common order or arrangement;

Ordinance, a rule or order, as a municipal decree or law; and ordain, as in to decree or order.