ordination

/ˈɔrdnˌeɪʃən/

Other forms: ordinations

What an inauguration is to a president, an ordination is to a religious authority. It's the ceremony of bestowing a person with a position of religious authority — as when someone becomes a priest, minister, or shaman.

The noun ordination comes from the Latin word ordinare, meaning “put in order.” Becoming a religious leader usually requires training in a seminary followed by an ordination. On the other hand, the ordination of a monarch is a ceremony in which a King’s or Queen’s divine right to rule the country, which was historically considered a birth right, is asserted and initiated without any seminary courses required.

Definitions of ordination

1. noun

   the act of ordaining; the act of conferring (or receiving) holy orders
   “the rabbi's family was present for his ordination”

   synonyms: ordinance

   types:

   laying on of hands

   laying hands on a person's head to invoke spiritual blessing in Christian ordination

   type of:

   appointment, assignment, designation, naming

   the act of putting a person into a non-elective position
2. noun

   the status of being ordained to a sacred office
   type of:

   position, status

   the relative position or standing of things or especially persons in a society
3. noun

   logical or comprehensible arrangement of separate elements
   synonyms: order, ordering

   types:

   bacteria order

   an order of bacteria

   word order

   the order of words in a text

   genetic code

   the ordering of nucleotides in DNA molecules that carries the genetic information in living cells

   genome

   the ordering of genes in a haploid set of chromosomes of a particular organism; the full DNA sequence of an organism

   series

   similar things placed in order or happening one after another

   Stations, Stations of the Cross

   (Roman Catholic Church) a devotion consisting of fourteen prayers said before a series of fourteen pictures or carvings representing successive incidents during Jesus' passage from Pilate's house to his crucifixion at Calvary

   chain, concatenation

   a series of things depending on each other as if linked together

   cordon

   a series of sentinels or of military posts enclosing or guarding some place or thing

   course, line, trajectory

   a connected series of events or actions or developments

   cycle

   a series of poems or songs on the same theme

   electrochemical series, electromotive force series, electromotive series

   a serial arrangement of metallic elements or ions according to their electrode potentials determined under specified conditions; the order shows the tendency of one metal to reduce the ions of any other metal below it in the series

   hierarchy

   a series of ordered groupings of people or things within a system

   triplet code

   the normal version of the genetic code in which a sequence of three nucleotides codes for the synthesis of a specific amino acid

   nexus

   a connected series or group

   patterned advance, progression

   a series with a definite pattern of advance

   blizzard, rash

   a series of unexpected and unpleasant occurrences

   sequence

   serial arrangement in which things follow in logical order or a recurrent pattern

   string, train

   a sequentially ordered set of things or events or ideas in which each successive member is related to the preceding

   succession

   a group of people or things arranged or following in order

   wave train

   a succession of waves spaced at regular intervals

   helium group

   the series of inert gases

   actinide series

   (chemistry) a series of 15 radioactive elements with increasing atomic numbers from actinium to lawrencium

   lanthanide series

   the rare-earth elements with atomic numbers 57 through 71; having properties similar to lanthanum

   type of:

   arrangement

   an orderly grouping (of things or persons) considered as a unit; the result of arranging