policy - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English policie, from Old French policie, pollicie and police, from Late Latin politia (“citizenship; government”), classical Latin polītīa (in Cicero), from Ancient Greek πολιτεία (politeía, “citizenship; polis, (city) state; government”), from πολίτης (polítēs, “citizen”). Compare police and polity.

policy (countable and uncountable, plural policies)

  1. A principle of behaviour, conduct etc. thought to be desirable or necessary, especially as formally expressed by a government or other authoritative body and implemented by its actions. [from 15th c.]
    The Communist Party has a policy of returning power to the workers.
    It's company policy that all mobile phones are forbidden in meetings.
    Federal policy is constructed in complex ways, involving legislation, regulation, and lobbying.
  2. A document describing such a policy.
    Please print extra copies of this policy and post them where it will be easy for everyone to see.
  3. Wise, advantageous, or politic conduct; prudence, formerly also with connotations of craftiness. [from 15th c.]
    • 1639, Thomas Fuller, “King Richard Taken Prisoner in Austria; Sold and Sent to the Emperour; Dearly Ransomed, Returneth Home”, in The Historie of the Holy Warre, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: […] Thomas Buck, one of the printers to the Universitie of Cambridge [and sold by John Williams, London], →OCLC, book III, page 130:
      [H]e [Richard I of England] was diſcovered in an inne in Auſtria, becauſe he diſguiſed his perſon not his expenſes; ſo that the very policie of an hoſteſſe, finding his purſe ſo farre above his clothes, did detect him: […]
    • 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter XI, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume II, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 131:
      These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I with greater policy concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; […]
  4. (now rare) Specifically, political shrewdness or (formerly) cunning; statecraft. [from 15th c.]
  5. (Scotland, now chiefly in the plural) The grounds of a large country house. [from 18th c.]
    • 1775, Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland section on Aberbrothick
      Now and then about a gentleman’s house stands a small plantation, which in Scotch is called a policy, but of these there are few, and those few all very young.
    • 1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 36:
      Next morning was so splendid that as he walked through the policies towards the mansion house despair itself was lulled.
    • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 277, about Strachur:
      The house and its policies (grounds) lie between what were once two or three separate hamlets.
  6. (obsolete) The art of governance; political science. [14th–18th c.]
  7. (obsolete) A state; a polity. [14th–16th c.]
  8. (obsolete) A set political system; civil administration. [15th–19th c.]
  9. (obsolete) A trick; a stratagem. [15th–19th c.]
  10. (obsolete) Motive; object; inducement.

principle of conduct

prudent conduct

policy (third-person singular simple present policies, present participle policying, simple past and past participle policied)

  1. (transitive) To regulate by laws; to reduce to order.

From Middle French police, from Italian polizza, from Medieval Latin apodissa (“receipt for money”), from Ancient Greek ἀπόδειξις (apódeixis, “proof, declaration”). Doublet of apodixis.

policy (plural policies)

  1. (law)
    1. A contract of insurance.
    2. A document containing or certifying this contract.
  2. (obsolete) An illegal daily lottery in late nineteenth and early twentieth century USA on numbers drawn from a lottery wheel (no plural)
  3. A number pool lottery

law: insurance document

illegal daily US lottery