authority.
Power or right to make or enforce rules, give orders, or impose obligation; or a position having such power or right.
Meaning & usage
Power or right to make or enforce rules, give orders, or impose obligation; or a position having such power or right.
I have the authority to penalise the staff in my department, but not the authority to sack them.
Vigilantes may have the power to nab criminals, but they lack the authority.
Persons, regarded collectively, who occupy official positions of power; police or law enforcement.
Authorities say the suspect fled on foot.
A reliable, definitive source of information on a subject.
the world's foremost authority on orangutans
My cheap dictionary is not the authority on word derivations.
Status as a trustworthy source of information, reputation for mastery or expertise; or claim to such status or reputation.
Due to being inadequate for the deductive method of reasoning, the argument from authority is considered a logical fallacy.
Official permission; authorisation to act in some capacity on behalf of a ruling entity.
A government-owned agency that runs a revenue-generating activity for public benefit.
New York Port Authority
Chicago Transit Authority
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ewg-der. Proto-Indo-European *h₂owg-éye-ti Proto-Italic *augejō Proto-Italic *augeō Latin augeō Proto-Indo-European *-tōr Proto-Italic *-tōr Latin -tor Latin auctor Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Latin -tās Latin auctōritāsbor. Old French autoritébor. Middle English auctorite English authority From Middle English auctorite, autorite (“authority, book or quotation that settles an argument”), from Old French auctorité, from Latin stem of auctōritās (“invention, advice, opinion, influence, command”), from auctor (“master, leader, author”). For the presence of the h, compare the etymology of author.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.