institute

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To establish, organize, and set in operation.
2. v. To initiate; begin. See Synonyms at found¹.
3. v. To establish or invest in an office or a position.
4. n. Something instituted, especially an authoritative rule or precedent.
5. n. A digest of the principles or rudiments of a particular subject, especially a legal abstract.
6. n. An organization founded to promote a cause: a cancer research institute.
7. n. An educational institution, especially one for the instruction of technical subjects.
8. n. The building or buildings housing such an institution.
9. n. A usually short, intensive workshop or seminar on a specific subject.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To set up; establish; put into form and operation; set afoot: as, to institute laws, rules, or regulations; to institute a government or a court; to institute a suit or an investigation.
2. To establish in an office; appoint; in ecclesiastical use, to assign to a spiritual charge; invest with the cure of souls: used absolutely, or followed by to or into.
3. To ground or establish in principles; educate; instruct.
4. Instituted; established.
5. n. An established principle, rule, or law; a settled order.
6. n. plural A collection of established laws, rules, or principles; a book of elements, especially in jurisprudence: as, the Institutes of Justinian; Erskine's “Institutes of the Law of Scotland”; Calvin's “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” The word implies a systematic statement of the law or of the principles of the subject treated, in analytic form, in a single and complete work, as distinguished from a mere compilation or collection, and from a commentary; but it does not necessarily imply that it is established by any formal authority.
7. n. An established body of persons; an institution; a society or association organized for some specific work, especially of a literary or scientific character: as, a philosophic or educational institute; a mechanics' institute; the Institute of Civil Engineers; the National Institute of France, or specifically the institute (see below).
8. n. In Scots law, the person to whom the estate is first given in a destination. Thus, where a person executing a settlement dispones his lands to A, whom failing, to B, whom failing, to C, etc., A is termed the institute, and all who follow him in the succession are heirs, or substitutes, as they are also termed.

Wiktionary

1. n. An organization founded to promote a cause
2. n. An institution of learning; a college, especially for technical subjects
3. n. The building housing such an institution
4. v. transitive To begin or initiate (something).
5. v. obsolete, transitive To train, instruct.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. obsolete Established; organized; founded.
2. v. To set up; to establish; to ordain
3. v. To originate and establish; to found; to organize.
4. v. obsolete To nominate; to appoint.
5. v. To begin; to commence; to set on foot
6. v. obsolete To ground or establish in principles and rudiments; to educate; to instruct.
7. v. (Eccl. Law) To invest with the spiritual charge of a benefice, or the care of souls.
8. n. obsolete The act of instituting; institution.
9. n. That which is instituted, established, or fixed, as a law, habit, or custom.
10. n. Hence: An elementary and necessary principle; a precept, maxim, or rule, recognized as established and authoritative; usually in the plural, a collection of such principles and precepts; esp., a comprehensive summary of legal principles and decisions. Cf. Digest, n.
11. n. An institution; a society established for the promotion of learning, art, science, etc.; a college; ; The Massachusetts Institute of Technology; also, a building owned or occupied by such an institute.
12. n. (Scots Law) The person to whom an estate is first given by destination or limitation.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. set up or lay the groundwork for
2. n. an association organized to promote art or science or education
3. v. advance or set forth in court