Dispensacioun

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A special exemption or permission that releases someone from a rule or law ; the ordering of events by divine providence ; the act of distributing or doling out something to others
2. An official relaxation of a rule granted to a particular person ; the arrangement of the world under God's guiding plan ; the giving out or administering of goods or favors
3. Permission to set aside an obligation or law in a specific case ; the governing of history by a higher divine order ; the process of handing out or apportioning things

Etymology: Ancient Romans used "dispensare," from "dispendere," to weigh out. Before standard coinage, payments of bronze and silver were literally weighed on scales, so to dispense was to pay out or hand over goods by weight. Roman households employed "dispensatores," stewards who measured out food and supplies to the household. The Latin noun "dispensatio" came to mean management, administration, and the ordering of affairs. Medieval Latin and Church usage developed a more specific sense: a formal arrangement by which an authority, most often the pope or a bishop, set aside a normal rule for a particular person. A cleric might, for example, receive permission to hold two benefices at once or a couple might be allowed to marry despite a forbidden relationship. The word reached English through Old French and appears in Middle English in forms like "dispensacioun," the spelling this writer uses. Its theological sense of God's ordered plan for human history also comes from this same Latin root.