institute

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• transitive verb To establish, organize, or introduce: synonym: establish.
• transitive verb To initiate; begin.
• transitive verb To establish or invest (someone) in an office or position.
• noun An organization founded to promote a cause.
• noun An educational institution, especially one for the instruction of technical subjects.
• noun The building or buildings housing such an institution.
• noun A usually short, intensive workshop or seminar on a specific subject.
• noun A principle or rudiment of a particular subject.
• noun A digest of or commentary on such principles or rudiments, especially a legal abstract.

from The Century Dictionary.

• Instituted; established.
• To set up; establish; put into form and operation; set afoot: as, to institute laws, rules, or regulations; to institute a government or a court; to institute a suit or an investigation.
• To establish in an office; appoint; in ecclesiastical use, to assign to a spiritual charge; invest with the cure of souls: used absolutely, or followed by to or into.
• To ground or establish in principles; educate; instruct.
• noun An established principle, rule, or law; a settled order.
• noun plural A collection of established laws, rules, or principles; a book of elements, especially in jurisprudence: as, the Institutes of Justinian; Erskine's “Institutes of the Law of Scotland”; Calvin's “Institutes of the Christian Religion.”
• noun An established body of persons; an institution; a society or association organized for some specific work, especially of a literary or scientific character: as, a philosophic or educational institute; a mechanics' institute; the Institute of Civil Engineers; the National Institute of France, or specifically the institute (see below).
• noun In Scots law, the person to whom the estate is first given in a destination.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective obsolete Established; organized; founded.
• transitive verb To set up; to establish; to ordain
• transitive verb To originate and establish; to found; to organize.
• transitive verb obsolete To nominate; to appoint.
• transitive verb To begin; to commence; to set on foot
• transitive verb obsolete To ground or establish in principles and rudiments; to educate; to instruct.
• transitive verb (Eccl. Law) To invest with the spiritual charge of a benefice, or the care of souls.
• noun obsolete The act of instituting; institution.
• noun That which is instituted, established, or fixed, as a law, habit, or custom.
• noun Hence: An elementary and necessary principle; a precept, maxim, or rule, recognized as established and authoritative; usually in the plural, a collection of such principles and precepts; esp., a comprehensive summary of legal principles and decisions. Cf. Digest, n.
• noun An institution; a society established for the promotion of learning, art, science, etc.; a college; ; The Massachusetts Institute of Technology; also, a building owned or occupied by such an institute.
• noun (Scots Law) The person to whom an estate is first given by destination or limitation.
• noun theoretical medicine; that department of medical science which attempts to account philosophically for the various phenomena of health as well as of disease; physiology applied to the practice of medicine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An organization founded to promote a cause
• noun An institution of learning; a college, especially for technical subjects
• noun The building housing such an institution
• verb transitive To begin or initiate (something).
• verb obsolete, transitive To train, instruct.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb set up or lay the groundwork for
• noun an association organized to promote art or science or education
• verb advance or set forth in court