Word Direct Answers

What does "establish" mean?

Establish: The best established tempers can scarcely forbear being borne down. Burke. Confidence which must precede union could be established only by consummate prudence and self-control. Bancroft.

Additional senses

  1. 2.To appoint or constitute for permanence, as officers, laws, regulations, etc.; to enact; to ordain. By the consent of all, we were established The people's magistrates. Shak. Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed. Dan. vi.
  2. 3.3. To originate and secure the permanent existence of; to found; to institute; to create and regulate; -- said of a colony, a state, or other institutions. He hath established it [the earth], he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited. Is. xlv.
  3. 4.Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establisheth a city by iniquity! Hab. ii.
  4. 5.4. To secure public recognition in favor of; to prove and cause to be accepted as true; as, to establish a fact, usage, principle, opinion, doctrine, etc. At the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. Deut. xix.
  5. 6.5. To set up in business; to place advantageously in a fixed condition; -- used reflexively; as, he established himself in a place; the enemy established themselves in the citadel.

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