constitution

1. (government) The formal or informal system of primary principles and laws that regulates a government or other institutions.Examples: "1693, Edmund Bohun, A Geographical Dictionary They have in their present Constitution a Grand Council of the Nobility, a Senato, a College of Twenty six who give Audience to Ambassadors and report their Demands to the Senate, a Council of Ten; and a Triumvirate (monthly chosen by, and out of, the Ten) of three Inquisitors of State; whose Authority is so absolute, as to extend to the taking away of the Life of the Doge no less than the meanest Artisan, without acquainting the Senate, provided they all three agree in the Sentence."; "Our constitution had begun to exist in times when statesmen were not much accustomed to frame exact definitions."

2. (law) A legal document describing such a formal system.

3. (Catholicism) A document issued by a religious authority serving to promulgate some particular church laws or doctrines.

4. (dated) The general health of a person.Examples: "But when once his constitution began to decline, he broke very fast, and being attacked bya complication of diseases, he at length gave way to fate, May 10, 1733."; "Don Manuel de Casafonda the governor, whose countenance bespoke a constitution far gone in a decliner had thrown himself on a sopha in the last state of despair and given way to an effusion of tears:"; "The physician, to gratify the apothecary, thinks himself obliged to order ten times more physic than the patient really wants, by which means he ruins his constitution, and too often his life; otherwise how is it possible an apothecarty's bill in a fever should amount to forty, or fifty, or more pounds?"dated