administration

plural administrations

1. uncountableusuallyThe act of administering; government of public affairs; the service rendered, or duties assumed, in conducting affairs; the conducting of any office or employment; direction.

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   […] the fact that the propertied classes are no longer the best educated, and the fact that the large number of people who owe their position solely to their general education do not possess that experience of the working of the economic system which the administration of property gives are important to understanding the role of the intellectual.

   1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 420

2. countableusuallygovernmentThe executive part of government; the persons collectively who are entrusted with the execution of laws and the superintendence of public affairs; the chief magistrate and his cabinet or council; or the council, or ministry, alone, as in Great Britain.

   Successive US administrations have had similar Middle East policies.

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   The trove of documents from half a dozen federal agencies in recent days are a direct result of a blockbuster Supreme Court decision last month that allowed the administration to develop plans for ending birthright citizenship – even though the effort has once again been placed on hold.

   2025 July 28, Devan Cole, John Fritze, Priscilla Alvarez, “New documents show how passport and Social Security rules would change to enforce Trump’s birthright citizenship order”, in CNN

3. uncountableusuallygovernmentThe country's government under the rule of a particular leader.

   The Obama administration

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   The Duterte administration

4. countableusuallyA body that administers; a body of administrators.

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   The Chiang Mai Administrative Court ruled in favour of students from the Media Arts and Design Department, Faculty of Fine Arts, Chiang Mai University, who filed for a temporary injunction on 18 October after the University administration prohibited them from showing their final theses in the University Art Centre because some pieces dealt with social and political themes.

   2021 November 6, Prachatai, “Chiang Mai Administrative Court rules in favour of CMU student”, in Prachatai, Bangkok: Prachatai, retrieved 06 Nov 2021

5. uncountableusuallyThe act of administering, or tendering something to another; dispensation.

   oral administration of insulin

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   the administration of a medicine, of an oath, of justice, or of the sacrament

6. uncountableusuallybusinessManagement.
7. UKuncountableusuallylawAn arrangement whereby an insolvent company can continue trading under supervision.

   The company went into voluntary administration last week.

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   The other ambitions, and much of Prescott's plan, foundered just south of Hatfield that October, when a GNER express derailed on a shattered rail […], plunging the railway into a crisis that led to private track owner Railtrack being put into administration.

   2024 September 4, Philip Haigh, “Can public-private partnerships be made to deliver?”, in RAIL, number 1017, page 52

1. USnonstandardoftenAlternative letter-case form of administration.