obedience
nounUK /ə(ʊ)ˈbiːdɪəns/ · US /oʊˈbidiəns/
Etymology From Middle English obedience, from Anglo-Norman obedience, from Old French obedience (modern French obédience), from Latin oboedientia. Displaced native Old English hīersumnes (compare modern English hearsomeness). Cognate with obeisance.
1
The quality of being obedient.
- Obedience is essential in any army.
- February 24, 1823, Thomas Jefferson, letter to Mr. Edward Everett Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
1 more example
- Cautioning Nobs to silence, and he had learned many lessons in the value of obedience since we had entered Caspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatever cover I could find...1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter VIII, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927, →OCLC:
2
The collective body of persons subject to any particular authority.
3
A written instruction from the superior of an order to those under him.
4
Any official position under an abbot's jurisdiction.
- Synonyms
- submission, hearsomeness