police

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

• noun A body of government employees trained in methods of law enforcement and crime prevention and detection and authorized to maintain the peace, safety, and order of the community.
• noun A body of persons with a similar organization and function.
• noun Archaic Regulation and control of the affairs of a community, especially with respect to maintenance of order, law, health, morals, safety, and other matters affecting the public welfare.
• noun Informal A group that admonishes, cautions, or reminds.
• noun The cleaning of a military base or other military area.
• noun The soldiers assigned to a specified maintenance duty.
• transitive verb To regulate, control, or keep in order with a law enforcement agency or other official group.
• transitive verb To observe and issue warnings or correctives regarding.
• transitive verb To make (a military area, for example) neat in appearance.

from The Century Dictionary.

• To watch, guard, or maintain order in; protect or control by means of a body of policemen: as, to police a district; to police the inland waters of a country.
• To clean up; clear out; put in order: as, to police the parade-ground.
• noun Public order; the regulation of a country or district with reference to the maintenance of order; more specifically, the power of each state, when exercised (either directly by its legislature or through its municipalities) for the suppression or regulation of whatever is injurious to the peace, health, morality, general intelligence, and thrift of the community, and its internal safety.
• noun An organized civil force for maintaining order, preventing and detecting crime, and enforcing the laws; the body of men by whom the municipal laws and regulations of a city, incorporated town or borough, or rural district are enforced.
• noun In the United States army, the act or process of policing (see police, v., 2): a kind of fatigue duty: as, to go on police; to do police.
• noun A civil police having a military organization. Such are the French gendarmerie, the sbirri of Italy, and the Irish constabulary.
• noun In Scotland, one of a body elected by the ratepayers to manage police affairs in burghs.

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

• noun A judicial and executive system, for the government of a city, town, or district, for the preservation of rights, order, cleanliness, health, etc., and for the enforcement of the laws and prevention of crime; the administration of the laws and regulations of a city, incorporated town, or borough.
• noun That which concerns the order of the community; the internal regulation of a state.
• noun The organized body of civil officers in a city, town, or district, whose particular duties are the preservation of good order, the prevention and detection of crime, and the enforcement of the laws.
• noun (Mil.) Military police, the body of soldiers detailed to preserve civil order and attend to sanitary arrangements in a camp or garrison.
• noun The cleaning of a camp or garrison, or the state � a camp as to cleanliness.
• noun a civil officer, usually one of a board, commissioned to regulate and control the appointment, duties, and discipline of the police.
• noun a policeman.
• noun a minor court to try persons brought before it by the police.
• noun an officer of police ranking next below a superintendent.
• noun a body of officers who collectively exercise jurisdiction in certain cases of police, as levying taxes, etc.; -- so called in Louisiana.
• noun a judge of a police court.
• noun (Law) minor offenses against the order of the community, of which a police court may have final jurisdiction.
• noun the headquarters of the police, or of a section of them; the place where the police assemble for orders, and to which they take arrested persons.
• transitive verb To keep in order by police.
• transitive verb (Mil.) To make clean.

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

• verb transitive To enforce the law and keep order among (a group).
• verb transitive To patrol an area.

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

• noun the force of policemen and officers
• verb maintain the security of by carrying out a patrol