1. (n.) A collection or rules, laws or books established by a council.
2. (n.) A law, or rule of doctrine or discipline, enacted by a council and confirmed by the pope or the sovereign; a decision, regulation, code, or constitution made by ecclesiastical authority.
3. (n.) The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration; the Bible; also, any one of the canonical Scriptures. See Canonical.
4. (n.) In monasteries, a book containing the rules of a religious order.
5. (n.) A catalogue of saints acknowledged and canonized in the Roman Catholic Church.
6. (n.) A member of a cathedral chapter; a person who possesses a prebend in a cathedral or collegiate church.
7. (n.) A musical composition in which the voices begin one after another, at regular intervals, successively taking up the same subject. It either winds up with a coda (tailpiece), or, as each voice finishes, commences anew, thus forming a perpetual fugue or round. It is the strictest form of imitation. See Imitation.
8. (n.) The largest size of type having a specific name; -- so called from having been used for printing the canons of the church.
9. (n.) The part of a bell by which it is suspended; -- called also ear and shank.
10. (n.) See Carom.
Thesaurus Entries
Bible, Douay Bible, Festschrift, Grand Penitentiary, Holy Father, Holy Scripture, Holy Writ, King James Version, Procrustean law, Revised Standard Version, Revised Version, Scripture, Sefer Torah, Septuagint, Testament, Torah, Torah scroll, Virginal, Vulgate, a belief, abuna, act, album, ana, analects, anthology, antipope, archbishop, archdeacon, archpriest, article of faith, assize, axiom, barometer, beauties, bill, bishop, bishop coadjutor, breviary, bylaw, cardinal, cardinal bishop, cardinal deacon, cardinal priest, catch, chaplain, check, chrestomathy, church book, coadjutor, code, collectanea, collected works, collection, commandment, compilation, complete works, convention, criterion, curate, dean, decree, decretum, degree, delectus, dictate, dictation, dictum, diocesan, doctrine, dogma, ecclesiarch, edict, enactment, euchologion, euchology, exarch, farse, florilegium, flowers, form, formality, formula, formulary, fugato, fugue, garden, garland, gauge, general principle, golden rule, graduated scale, guideline, guiding principle, hierarch, high priest, imperative, institution, jus, law, law of nature, lectionary, legislation, lex, litany, machzor, manual, maxim, measure, metropolitan, miscellanea, miscellany, missal, mitzvah, model, moral, norm, norma, omnibus, order of nature, ordinal, ordinance, ordonnance, papa, parameter, patriarch, pattern, penitentiary, photograph album, pontiff, pontifical, pope, prayer book, prebendary, precept, prelate, prescribed form, prescript, prescription, primate, principium, principle, quantity, quotation book, reading, readout, rector, regulation, ritual, rituale, rondeau, rondelet, rondino, rondo, rondoletto, round, roundelay, rubric, rule, ruling, rural dean, scale, scrapbook, service book, set form, settled principle, siddur, standard, standing order, statute, subdean, suffragan, symposium, teaching, tenet, test, the Book, the Good Book, the Scriptures, the Word, touchstone, troll, type, universal law, value, vicar, working principle, working rule, yardstick
