Meanings
- not comparableRelating to an institution or institutions.
[…] Dr. Grant had brought on apoplexy and death, by three great institutionary dinners in one week, […]
1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XVII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 3452 more examples
The second class of rites are memorial in character. As the former were addressed to the gods, so these are chiefly for the benefit of the people. They are didactic, to preserve the myth, or institutionary, to keep alive the discipline and forms of the church.
1876, Daniel Garrison Brinton, chapter 6, in The Religious Sentiment: Its Source and Aim, page 2251917, Albert Bigelow Paine, “Mark Twain—A Biographical Summary” in Mark Twain’s Letters, New York: Gabriel Wells, 1923, Volume I, p. 16, […] he declared he would travel to Mars and back, if necessary, to get that Oxford degree. He appreciated its full meaning—recognition by the world’s foremost institution of learning of the achievements of one who had no learning of the institutionary kind.
Synonyms: institutional
- not comparableContaining the first principles or doctrines; rudimentary.
[…] among the Institutionary rules of youth, [Aristotle] adviseth they might not be permitted to hear Iambicks and Tragedies before they were admitted unto discumbency or lying along with others at their meales.
1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 2nd edition, London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, published 1650, Book 5, Chapter 6, pp. 203-2041 more example
1772, Review of Macbride’s Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Physic, The Monthly Review, Volume 47, November 1772, p. 381, The first or institutionary part, which is divided into seven books, explains the principles on which the art is founded, and may be read with pleasure even by those who would wish only to be acquainted with the theory of medicine, considered as a curious and interesting branch of natural philosophy.
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveRelating to an institution or institutions.
Origin
Cite this entry
institutionary. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/institutionary
“institutionary.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/institutionary. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “institutionary,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/institutionary.
Source: institutionary on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.