order

Etymology

From Middle English ordre, from Old French ordre, ordne, ordene (“order, rank”), from Latin ōrdinem, accusative of ōrdō (“row, rank, regular arrangement”, literally “row of threads in a loom”), from Proto-Italic *ordō (“to arrange”), probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂or-d-, from *h₂er-. Related to Latin ōrdior (“begin”, literally “begin to weave”). In sense “request for purchase”, compare bespoke. Doublet of ordo.

noun

1. (countable) Arrangement, disposition, or sequence.
   put the children in age order
   It's arranged in order of frequency
2. (countable) A position in an arrangement, disposition, or sequence.
   In these situations we find the Genesee slate, the Tully limestone and the upper part of the Hamilton group, each one in its order disappearing beneath the lake level as we proceed southward. 1843, New York (State). Natural History Survey, Geology of New-York: Comprising the survey of the fourth geological ...
   In the latter portion of this period, the country was assailed by famine and pestilence - — a fearful visitation which will be noticed hereafter in its order of date, and of which it would be out of place to say more at present. 1856, George Nicholls, A History of the Irish Poor Law: In Connexion with the Condition of the People
   1897, T. L. Heath (translator), Eutocius of Ascalon, Extract from a commentary by Eutocius, quoted in 1897 [CUP], T. L. Heath (editor), The Works of Archimedes, 2002, Dover, unnumbered page, His attempt I shall also give in its order.
   This narrative must be discussed later on, in its order. 1915, Edwin Abbott Abbott, the fourfold gospel the proclamation of the new kingdom, page 298
   The latter comes into play only as we examine each word in its order in the line. 1996, John Clare, Eric Robinson, David Powell, John Clare: Poems of the Middle Period, 1822-1837, page xxxi
   Hasn't it been shown that the Hebrew letter “w” is equivalent to the number 6, due to its order in the alphabet, he asked? 2013, Leah Sarat, Fire in the Canyon: Religion, Migration, and the Mexican Dream
   Because Professor Soler told me that you had to investigate things step by step, that you had to find a thread to follow and follow it, and find everything out in its order. 2014, Julia Navarro, Tell Me Who I Am
3. (uncountable) The state of being well arranged.
   The house is in order; the machinery is out of order.
4. (countable) Conformity with law or decorum; freedom from disturbance; general tranquillity; public quiet.
   to preserve order in a community or an assembly
   Order in the court!
5. (countable) A command.
   give an order
   his inability to follow orders
   It was by his order the shattered leading company flung itself into the houses when the Sin Verguenza were met by an enfilading volley as they reeled into the calle. 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 30, in The Dust of Conflict
   John Hedley was Locomotive Foreman at Beattock. He was in bed, but they roused him, and he gave orders for one of his pilot engines to go up to the summit, get Mitchell's train, and take it to Carlisle. 1950 January, David L. Smith, “A Runaway at Beattock”, in Railway Magazine, page 53
6. (countable) A request for some product or service; a commission to purchase, sell, or supply goods.
   make an order
   receive an online order for the new range of sunglasses
   A farmer could place an order for a new tractor part by text message and pay for it by mobile money-transfer. 2012-12-01, “An internet of airborne things”, in The Economist, volume 405, number 8813, page 3 (Technology Quarterly)
7. (countable) A group of religious adherents, especially monks or nuns, set apart within their religion by adherence to a particular rule or set of principles.
   St. Ignatius Loyola founded the Jesuit order in 1537.
8. (countable) An association of knights.
   the Order of the Garter, the Order of the Bath.
9. Any group of people with common interests.
10. (countable) A decoration, awarded by a government, a dynastic house, or a religious body to an individual, usually for distinguished service to a nation or to humanity.
    The Order of Propitious Clouds is a civilian order that can be awarded to Taiwan citizens or foreign nationals. It is divided into a total of nine "classes" or grades, of which the Special Grand Cordon is the highest. Pelosi said she was particularly honored to receive the award from Tsai -- "a woman president in one of the freest societies in the world." 08/03/2022, Matthew Mazzetta, “President Tsai awards state honor to visiting U.S. House speaker”, in Focus Taiwan, archived from the original on 2022-08-03
11. (countable, biology, taxonomy) A category in the classification of organisms, ranking below class and above family; a taxon at that rank.
    Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola. A recent study explored the ecological variables that may contribute to bats’ propensity to harbor such zoonotic diseases by comparing them with another order of common reservoir hosts: rodents. 2013 May-June, Katie L. Burke, “In the News”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 193
    The magnolia and nutmeg families belong to the order Magnoliales.
12. A number of things or persons arranged in a fixed or suitable place, or relative position; a rank; a row; a grade; especially, a rank or class in society; a distinct character, kind, or sort.
    the higher or lower orders of society
    talent of a high order
    Various orders various ensigns bear. 1726, George Granville, The British Enchanters
13. (Christianity) An ecclesiastical rank or position, usually for the sake of ministry, (especially, when plural) holy orders.
    There have been many major and minor orders in the history of Christianity: the order of virgins, of deacons, priests, lectors, acolytes, porters, catechists, widows, etc.
    to take orders or holy orders means to be ordained a deacon or priest
14. (architecture) The disposition of a column and its component parts, and of the entablature resting upon it, in classical architecture; hence (since the column and entablature are the characteristic features of classical architecture) a style or manner of architectural design.
15. (cricket) The sequence in which a side’s batsmen bat; the batting order.
16. (electronics) A power of polynomial function in an electronic circuit’s block, such as a filter, an amplifier, etc.
    a 3-stage cascade of a 2nd-order bandpass Butterworth filter
17. (chemistry) The overall power of the rate law of a chemical reaction, expressed as a polynomial function of concentrations of reactants and products.
18. (set theory) The cardinality, or number of elements in a set, group, or other structure regardable as a set.
    1911 [Cambridge University Press], William Burnside, Theory of Groups of Finite Order, 2nd Edition, Reprint, Dover (Dover Phoenix), 2004, page 222, In this case, the conjugate set contains n(n − 1)/x(x − 1) distinct sub-groups of order m, and H is therefore self-conjugate in a group K of order x(x − l)m.
    For various reasons it turns out to be better to enlarge this set of invariants to include suitable normalizers of subgroups of odd prime order. 2000, Michael Aschbacher, Finite Group Theory, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, page 260
19. (group theory, of an element of a group) For given group G and element g ∈ G, the smallest positive natural number n, if it exists, such that (using multiplicative notation), gⁿ = e, where e is the identity element of G; if no such number exists, the element is said to be of infinite order (or sometimes zero order).
    The object of this note is to observe that it is possible to calculate the order of an element A of G= mathit GL(d,q) on average using O(d³ mathsf logq) field operations, assuming that qⁱ-1 has been factorised for i<d. 1997, Frank Celler, C. R. Leedham-Green, “Calculating the Order of an Invertible Matrix”, in Larry Finkelstein, William M. Kantor, editors, Groups and Computation II, American Mathematical Society, page 55
    1999, A. Ehrenfeucht, T. Harju, G. Rozenberg, The Theory of 2-structures, World Scientific, page 15, If Δ is a finite group, its cardinality is called the order of Δ. The order of an element a∈Δ is defined as the smallest nonnegative integer n such that aⁿ=1_Δ. The second case of the following result is known as Cauchy's theorem. Theorem 1.10 Let Δ be a finite group. (i) The order of an element a∈Δ divides the order |Δ| of the group. (ii) If a prime number p divides |Δ|, then there exists an element a∈Δ of order p.
    2010, A. R. Vasishta, A. K. Vasishta, Modern Algebra, Krishna Prakashan Media, 60th Edition, page 180, Since in a finite group the order of an element must be a divisor of the order of the group, therefore o (a) cannot be 3 and so we must have o (a)=4=the order of the group G.
20. (graph theory) The number of vertices in a graph.
21. (order theory) A partially ordered set.
22. (order theory) The relation on a partially ordered set that determines that it is, in fact, a partially ordered set.
23. (algebra) The sum of the exponents on the variables in a monomial, or the highest such among all monomials in a polynomial.
    A quadratic polynomial, ax²+bx+c, is said to be of order (or degree) 2.
24. (finance) A written direction to furnish someone with money or property; compare money order, postal order.
    I then walked to Cochrane's & got an order on Sir Charles Asgill for my money. 1763, James Boswell, edited by Gordon Turnbull, London Journal 1762-1763, Penguin, published 2014, page 233

verb

1. (transitive) To set in some sort of order.
   We need to order them alphabetically.
2. (transitive) To arrange, set in proper order.
   The books in the shelf need ordering.
3. (transitive) To issue a command to.
   to order troops to advance
   He ordered me to leave.
   I hate being ordered around by my co-workers.
4. (transitive) To request some product or service; to secure by placing an order.
   You can now order most products to be delivered to your home.
   to order groceries
   to order food from a restaurant
5. To admit to holy orders; to ordain; to receive into the ranks of the ministry.