regulation

Etymology

From regulate + -ion.

noun

1. (uncountable) The act of regulating or the condition of being regulated.
2. (countable) A law or administrative rule, issued by an organization, used to guide or prescribe the conduct of members of that organization.
   Army regulations state a soldier AWOL over 30 days is a deserter.
   In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised. 2013-05-17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19
3. (law, often in the plural) A type of law made by the executive branch of a government, usually as authorized by a statute made by the legislative branch giving the executive the authority to do so.
   Coordinate term: statute
   1. (countable, in the singular) A numbered provision within such kind of law.
      Regulation 18B of the Defence (General) Regulations 1939 (S.R. & O. 1939/927) authorized the British government to intern suspected spies and collaborators during World War II.
4. (European Union law) A form of legislative act which is self-effecting, and requires no further intervention by the Member States to become law.
5. (genetics) Mechanism controlling DNA transcription.
6. (medicine) Physiological process which consists in maintaining homoeostasis.

adj

1. In conformity with applicable rules and regulations.
   It is regulation that these directives are to be destroyed on receipt. 1969, Thomas Wiseman, The Quick and the Dead, page 328
   The hat is regulation as well, I assume. 2004, Marc Miller, The Kettles and the Keeps: Ghosts at War, page 88
   It is the responsibility of every legionare to be sure that he is regulation height as well. 2007, Jim Butcher, Captain's Fury, page 48