discipline
[dis-uh-plin]
- training to act in accordance with rules; drill: military discipline.
- activity, exercise, or a regimen that develops or improves a skill; training: A daily stint at the typewriter is excellent discipline for a writer.
- punishment inflicted by way of correction and training.
- the rigor or training effect of experience, adversity, etc.: the harsh discipline of poverty.
- behavior in accord with rules of conduct; behavior and order maintained by training and control: good discipline in an army.
- a set or system of rules and regulations.
- Ecclesiastical. the system of government regulating the practice of a church as distinguished from its doctrine.
- an instrument of punishment, especially a whip or scourge, used in the practice of self-mortification or as an instrument of chastisement in certain religious communities.
- a branch of instruction or learning: the disciplines of history and economics.
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- to train by instruction and exercise; drill.
- to bring to a state of order and obedience by training and control.
- to punish or penalize in order to train and control; correct; chastise.
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Origin of discipline
Synonyms
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12. See punish.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
controldevelopmentrestraintpracticeself-restraintwillregulationpreparationself-controleducationmethodcurriculumlimitationstrictnessindoctrinationwillpowercultivationcurbdrillconductExamples from the Web for discipline
Contemporary Examples
He is an immensely talented quarterback who has dedicated his entire life to athletic excellence and discipline.
Bullhooks, whippings, and electric shocks were used as the main methods of discipline and training for their exotic animals.
Four, the recruitment by the Republicans of affable-seeming candidates who had some discipline drilled into them.
People tend to condemn the obese because they believe that “fatness” is evidence of laziness and lack of discipline.
The discipline required for martial arts fed into the psychology of the character, who approaches everything mission by mission.
Dan Stevens Blows Up ‘Downton’: From Chubby-Cheeked Aristo to Lean, Mean American PsychoTim Teeman
September 19, 2014
Historical Examples
They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership.
By heredity and discipline all minds are shaped to this great hour.
Ballads of a BohemianRobert W. Service
That he killed a mutineer is proof of his resolute adherence to discipline.
Their discipline was lax, and many of them had left their posts, and gone off into the town.
Stories from ThucydidesH. L. Havell
The first includes all the force of discipline and training.
The Story of the Malakand Field ForceSir Winston S. Churchill
discipline
- training or conditions imposed for the improvement of physical powers, self-control, etc
- systematic training in obedience to regulations and authority
- the state of improved behaviour, etc, resulting from such training or conditions
- punishment or chastisement
- a system of rules for behaviour, methods of practice, etc
- a branch of learning or instruction
- the laws governing members of a Church
- a scourge of knotted cords
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- to improve or attempt to improve the behaviour, orderliness, etc, of by training, conditions, or rules
- to punish or correct
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Word Origin
C13: from Latin disciplīna teaching, from discipulus disciple
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for discipline
n.
early 13c., "penitential chastisement; punishment," from Old French descepline (11c.) "discipline, physical punishment; teaching; suffering; martyrdom," and directly from Latin disciplina "instruction given, teaching, learning, knowledge," also "object of instruction, knowledge, science, military discipline," from discipulus (see disciple (n.)).
Sense of "treatment that corrects or punishes" is from notion of "order necessary for instruction." The Latin word is glossed in Old English by þeodscipe. Meaning "branch of instruction or education" is first recorded late 14c. Meaning "military training" is from late 15c.; that of "orderly conduct as a result of training" is from c.1500.
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v.
c.1300; see discipline (n.). Related: Disciplined; disciplines; disciplining.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper