establish

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To set up; found. See Synonyms at found¹.
2. v. To bring about; generate: establish goodwill in the neighborhood.
3. v. To place or settle in a secure position or condition; install: They established me in my own business.
4. v. To make firm or secure.
5. v. To cause to be recognized and accepted: a discovery that established his reputation.
6. v. To introduce and put (a law, for example) into force.
7. v. To prove the validity or truth of: The defense attorneys established the innocence of the accused.
8. v. To make a state institution of (a church).

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make stable, firm, or sure; appoint; ordain; settle or fix unalterably.
2. To put or fix on a firm basis; settle stably or fixedly; put in a settled or an efficient state or condition; inceptively, set up or found: as, his health is well established; an established reputation; to establish a person in business; to establish a colony or a university.
3. To confirm or strengthen; make more stable or determinate.
4. To confirm by affirmation or approval; sanction; uphold.
5. To make good; prove; substantiate; show to be valid or well grounded; cause to be recognized as valid or legal; cause to be accepted as true or as worthy of credence; as, to establish one's claim or one's case; to establish a marriage or a theory.
6. To fix or settle permanently, or as if permanently: with a reflexive pronoun.
7. To settle, as property.
8. In systematic biol., to give technical publication to; fix by publication in the nomenclatorial sense. See publication, 5.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive To make stable or firm; to confirm.
2. v. transitive To form; to found; to institute; to set up in business.
3. v. transitive To appoint, as officers, laws, regulations, etc.; to enact; to ordain.
4. v. transitive To prove and cause to be accepted as true; to establish a fact; to demonstrate.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To make stable or firm; to fix immovably or firmly; to set (a thing) in a place and make it stable there; to settle; to confirm.
2. v. To appoint or constitute for permanence, as officers, laws, regulations, etc.; to enact; to ordain.
3. v. To originate and secure the permanent existence of; to found; to institute; to create and regulate; -- said of a colony, a state, or other institutions.
4. v. To secure public recognition in favor of; to prove and cause to be accepted as true
5. v. To set up in business; to place advantageously in a fixed condition; -- used reflexively

WordNet 3.0

1. v. build or establish something abstract
2. v. place.
3. v. institute, enact, or establish
4. v. establish the validity of something, as by an example, explanation or experiment
5. v. use as a basis for; found on
6. v. bring about
7. v. set up or lay the groundwork for
8. v. set up or found