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e faculty, or authority, privilege, license, or the like hence, optional; as, facultative enactments, or those which convey a faculty, or permission; the facultative referendum of Switzerland is one that is optional with the people and is necessary only when demanded by petition; facultative studies; -- opposed to obli…

The act or process of instituting; as: (a) Establishment; foundation; enactment; as, the institution of a school. The institution of God's law is described as being established by solemn injunction. Hooker.

t to change its policy, and from 1880 to 1887 laws virtually nullifying the May laws were enacted.

-- deduced from the custom of merchants, and regulated by judicial decisions, as also by enactments of legislatures. -- Law of Charles (Physics), the law that the volume of a given mass of gas increases or decreases, by a definite fraction of its value for a given rise or fall of temperature; -- sometimes less correc…

One who makes or enacts a law or system of laws; a legislator.

Enacting laws; legislative.

Enacting laws; legislative. -- n.

To make or enact a law or laws. Solon, in legislating for the Athenians, had an idea of a more perfect constitution than he gave them. Bp. Watson (1805).

The act of legislating; preparation and enactment of laws; the laws enacted. Pythagoras joined legislation to his philosophy. Lyttelton.

a legitimate person before the law, by legal means; as, to legitimate a bastard child. To enact a statute of that which he dares not seem to approve, even to legitimate vice. Milton.

prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages, esp. one resembling that enacted in the State of Maine.

To reject by vote; to refuse to enact or sanction; as, the Senate negatived the bill.

Legislative; enacting laws; as, a nomothetical power. [R.] Bp. Barlow.

claimed in behalf of a State to nullify or make void, by its sovereign act or decree, an enactment of the general government which it deems unconstitutional.

To annul indirectly by enacting a new and contrary law, instead of by expressly abrogating or repealing the old one. [Obs.] Bailey.

rom drafts. Omnibus bill, a legislative bill which provides for a number of miscellaneous enactments or appropriations. [Parliamentary Cant, U.S.] -- Omnibus box, a large box in a theater, on a level with the stage and having communication with it. [Eng.] Thackeray.

tute, law, regulation, rescript, or accepted usage; an edict or decree; esp., a local law enacted by a municipal government; as, a municipal ordinance. Thou wilt die by God's just ordinance. Shak. By custom and the ordinance of times. Shak. Walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. Luke i. 6…

ure, when summoned by the royal authority to consult on the affairs of the nation, and to enact and repeal laws.

Enacted or done by Parliament; as, a parliamentary act. Sir M. Hale.

rough a body that has power to sanction or reject; to receive legislative sanction; to be enacted; as, the resolution passed; the bill passed both houses of Congress.