institute

noun

1. An organization founded to promote a cause

   “I work in a medical research institute.”

2. An institution of learning; a college, especially for technical subjects
3. The building housing such an institution.
4. (obsolete)The act of instituting; institution.

   “water sanctified by Christ's institute”

5. (obsolete)That which is instituted, established, or fixed, such as a law, habit, or custom.

   “They made a sort of institute and digest of anarchy.”

   “to make the Stoic institutes thy own”

6. (Scotland)The person to whom an estate is first given by destination or limitation.

   “Substitution is the nomination of substituted heirs, who take place, failing the institute.”

verb

1. (transitive)To begin or initiate (something); to found.

   “He instituted the new policy of having children walk through a metal detector to enter school.”

   “And haply institute / A course of learning and ingenious studies.”

   “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government.”

2. (obsolete, transitive)To train, instruct.

   “Publius was the first that ever instituted the Souldier to manage his armes by dexteritie and skil, and joyned art unto vertue, not for the use of private contentions, but for the wars and Roman peoples quarrels.”

   “If children were early instituted, knowledge would insensibly insinuate itself.”

3. To nominate; to appoint.

   “We institute your Grace / To be our regent in these parts of France.”

4. To invest with the spiritual charge of a benefice, or the care of souls.

   “a writ issued to the bishop, to institute the clerk of that patron”

adj

1. (not-comparable, obsolete)Established; organized; founded.

   “They have but few laws. For to a people so instruct and institute, very few to suffice.”