1. The act or process of instituting; as: (a) Establishment;
foundation; enactment; as, the institution of a school.
The institution of God's law is described as being established by
solemn injunction.
Hooker.
(b) Instruction; education. [Obs.] Bentley. (c) (Eccl. Law) The act or
ceremony of investing a clergyman with the spiritual part of a
benefice, by which the care of souls is committed to his charge.
Blackstone.
2. That which instituted or established; as: (a) Established order,
method, or custom; enactment; ordinance; permanent form of law or
polity.
The nature of our people, Our city's institutions.
Shak.
(b) An established or organized society or corporation; an
establishment, especially of a public character, or affecting a
community; a foundation; as, a literary institution; a charitable
institution; also, a building or the buildings occupied or used by such
organization; as, the Smithsonian Institution. (c) Anything forming a
characteristic and persistent feature in social or national life or
habits.
We ordered a lunch (the most delightful of English institutions,
next to dinner) to be ready against our return.
Hawthorne.
3. That which institutes or instructs; a textbook; a system of elements
or rules; an institute. [Obs.]
There is another manuscript, of above three hundred years old, . .
. being an institution of physic.
Evelyn.
In`sti*tu"tion*al (?), a. 1. Pertaining to, or treating of,
institutions; as, institutional legends.
Institutional writers as Rousseau.
J. S. Mill.