govern

verb

1. (transitive)To make and administer the public policy and affairs of; to exercise sovereign authority in.

   “The old king governed the land wisely.”

2. (intransitive)To exercise political authority; to run a government.

   “Americans are not libertarians in the Cato Institute sense of the word, but they are folk libertarians in this sense of impulsive behaviour, which is a feature of American life that anyone who wants to govern the United States, Democratic or Republican, has to be aware of.”

3. (transitive)To control the actions or behavior of; to keep under control; to restrain.

   “Govern yourselves like civilized people.”

   “a student who could not govern his impulses”

   “Find the strength, courage, and discipline to govern yourself or be governed by someone else.”

4. (transitive)To exercise a deciding or determining influence on.

   “Chance governs the outcome of many card games.”

5. (intransitive)To have or exercise a determining influence.
6. (obsolete, transitive)To handle, to manage, to oversee (a matter, an affair, a household, etc.).
7. (transitive)To control the speed, flow etc. of; to regulate.

   “a valve that governs fuel intake”

   “The weight and c.g. of the aircraft were within limits at takeoff and were calculated to have remained so until the tail began to disintegrate in flight. Both engines were developing a high level of power at impact, and the APU was rotating at or near governed speed. The landing gear, flaps, and spoiler/speed brakes were retracted. There was no evidence of structural or system failures other than those directly resulting from the fire.”

8. (obsolete, transitive)To direct the course of, to guide in some direction, to steer.
9. (obsolete, transitive)To look after, to take care of, to tend to (someone or some plant).

   “from my vncles country of Medea, Where all my youth I haue bene gouerned, […]”

10. (obsolete, transitive)To manage, to control, to work (a tool or mechanical device).
11. (transitive)To require that a certain preposition, grammatical case, etc. be used with a word.

    “In Latin (Russian, German, etc.), not only verbs, but also prepositions, may govern the noun, pronoun or noun-phrase dependent upon them in a particular case: e.g. ad urbem, ‘to the city’ (ad ‘takes the accusative’: urbem) v. ab urbe, ‘from the city’ (ab ‘takes the ablative’: urbe).”

noun

1. The act of governing