election

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or power of electing.
2. n. The fact of being elected.
3. n. The right or ability to make a choice. See Synonyms at choice.
4. n. Predestined salvation, especially as conceived by Calvinists.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A deliberate act of choice; particularly, a choice of means for accomplishing a given end.
2. n. The choice of a person or persons for office of any kind by the voting of a body of qualified or authorized electors. The persons voted for are called candidates, or, with reference to their selection as candidates, nominees. Election for public office is now almost universally effected by the use of printed ballots. (See ballot.) The decision may depend upon the casting of an actual majority of all the votes for a candidate, as in various European countries and in some of the United States, or upon a plurality or the largest number of votes for any candidate where there are more than two opposing candidates, as in most of the United States. In the former case a new election has to be held when there is no actual majority; in the latter a single balloting is final unless there is a tie, which is very rare.
3. n. The act or process of choosing a person or persons for office by vote; a polling for office; also, the occasion or set time and provision for making such choice: as, a general or a special election; American elections are generally held in autumn.
4. n. Hence By extension, a public vote upon a proposition submitted; a poll for the decision by vote of any public matter or question: as, to hold an election on a new constitution, or on a measure referred by the legislature to the people. [U.S.]
5. n. Discernment; discrimination; distinction.
6. n. In theology: The choice by God of particular individuals either to be the recipients of his grace and of eternal life, or to be commissioned for a particular work. Whether the choice in the former case is absolute or conditional is a disputed question in theology. Calvinism maintains that it is absolute; Arminianism, that it is conditional.
7. n. Those who are elected by God to eternal life.
8. n. In astrology, a reason for choosing one time rather than another for an undertaking; a preference of times. See root, n.
9. n. In mathematics, a part or the whole of a number of distinguishable objects. The number of elections of n things is 2ⁿ—1. Thus, the elections of three things, A, B, C, are: A, B, C, AB, AC, BC, ABC.

Wiktionary

1. n. A process of choosing a leader, members of parliament, councillors, or other representatives by popular vote.
2. n. The choice of a leader or representative by popular vote.
3. n. archaic Any conscious choice.
4. n. theology In Calvinism, God's predestination of saints including all of the elect.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of choosing; choice; selection.
2. n. The act of choosing a person to fill an office, or to membership in a society, as by ballot, uplifted hands, or viva voce.
3. n. Power of choosing; free will; liberty to choose or act.
4. n. obsolete Discriminating choice; discernment.
5. n. (Theol.) Divine choice; predestination of individuals as objects of mercy and salvation; -- one of the “five points” of Calvinism.
6. n. (Law) The choice, made by a party, of two alternatives, by taking one of which, the chooser is excluded from the other.
7. n. obsolete Those who are elected.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the status or fact of being elected
2. n. a vote to select the winner of a position or political office
3. n. the predestination of some individuals as objects of divine mercy (especially as conceived by Calvinists)
4. n. the act of selecting someone or something; the exercise of deliberate choice