dispensations

Noun

dispensation (countable and uncountable, plural dispensations)

1. The act of dispensing or dealing out; distribution
   • a fair dispensation of money
2. The distribution of good and evil by God to man.
   • Shall we not accompt theſe a part of Gods dispenſation, and therefore good in the Fountaine, from whence they flowed1625, George Sandys, Sacrae heptades
3. That which is dispensed, dealt out, or given; that which is bestowed on someone
   • Bowman certainly lost no time in travelling south to obtain his dispensation once he had published the sermon2016, Robert D. Cornwall, William Gibson, Religion, Politics and Dissent
4. A system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; scheme; economy
   • the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations
5. The relaxation of a law in a particular case; permission to do something forbidden, or to omit doing something enjoined; exemption.
   • Special grounds for giving dispensation to see classified documents include research purposes.2003, J. Abraham, H. Lawton Smith, Helen Lawton Smith, Regulation of the Pharmaceutical Industry
   1. In the Roman Catholic Church, an exemption from some ecclesiastical law, or from an obligation to God which a person has incurred of his own free will (oaths, vows, etc.).
      • [H]e had a dispensation for conforming in outward observances to the Protestant faith.1822, [Walter Scott], chapter I, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, pages 5–6