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Holding the superiority; prevalent; controlling; as, a governing wind; a governing party in a state. Jay.

f judging and determining, or ordaining, without control; one whose power of deciding and governing is not limited. For Jove is arbiter of both to man. Cowper.

Governing or controlling influence; domination; power. An undisputed ascendency. Macaulay. Custom has an ascendency over the understanding. Watts.

Supreme, uncontrolled, unlimited authority, or right of governing in a single person, as of an autocrat.

One of the senior and governing members of an Inn of Court.

ose of considering a particular measure under the operation of different rules from those governing the general legislative proceedings. The committee of the whole has its own chairman, and reports its action in the form of recommendations. -- Standing committee. See under Standing.

A church tribunal or governing body.

To exercise restraining or governing influence over; to check; to counteract; to restrain; to regulate; to govern; to overpower. Give me a staff of honor for mine age, But not a scepter to control the world. Shak. I feel my virtue struggling in my soul: But stronger passion does its power control. Dryden.…

he college of cardinals at Rome. Shipley. -- Dean and chapter, the legal corporation and governing body of a cathedral. It consists of the dean, who is chief, and his canons or prebendaries. -- Dean of arches, the lay judge of the court of arches. -- Dean of faculty, the president of an incorporation or barristers;…

Ruling; governing; prevailing; controlling; predominant; as, the dominant party, church, spirit, power. The member of a dominant race is, in his dealings with the subject race, seldom indeed fraudulent, . . . but imperious, insolent, and cruel. Macaulay. Dominant estate or tenement (Law), the estate to which a servitud…

Governing; ruling; imperious. Sir E. Sandys.

Sovereign or supreme authority; the power of governing and controlling; independent right of possession, use, and control; sovereignty; supremacy. I praised and honored him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion. Dan. iv. 34. To choose between dominion or slavery. Jowett (Thucyd. ).…

Any dominion; supreme control; governing influence; rule; sway; as, the empire of mind or of reason. "Under the empire of facts." M. Arnold. Another force which, in the Middle Ages, shared with chivalry the empire over the minds of men. A. W. Ward. Celestial empire. See under Celestial. -- Empire City, a common design…

That branch of science which treats of the laws governing the physical or mechanical, in distinction from the vital, forces, and which comprehends the consideration and general investigation of the whole range of the forces concerned in physical phenomena. [R.]

rate or officer who administers the government, whether king, president, or governor; the governing person or body.

nverted, the sense being more distinctly forth from, out from -- from being virtually the governing preposition, and the word the adverb. See From off, under Off, adv., and From afar, under Afar, adv. Sudden partings such as press The life from out young hearts. Byron.

A kind of verbal noun, having only the four oblique cases of the singular number, and governing cases like a participle.

The act of governing; the exercise of authority; the administration of laws; control; direction; regulation; as, civil, church, or family government.

d juror. -- Grand larceny. (Law) See under Larceny. -- Grand lodge, the chief lodge, or governing body, among Freemasons and other secret orders. -- Grand master. (a) The head of one of the military orders of knighthood, as the Templars, Hospitallers, etc. (b) The head of the order of Freemasons or of Good Templars,…

The act of governing; government [Obs.] I. Watts.