public policy

[puhb-lik pol-uh-see]

noun

1. 1. the body of laws and other measures that affect the general public.

      These officeholders are creating public policy on important issues including affordable housing and the environment.

   2. the underlying principles, values, or objectives that inform these laws and other measures: In a secular state, no religion can become the basis of public policy.

      The Institute participates in shaping public debate and public policy through inquiry and dialogue.

      In a secular state, no religion can become the basis of public policy.

2. Law.,  the principle that injury to the public good or public order constitutes a basis for declaring an act or transaction illegal or invalid.

   The principle of public policy requires that we judge the tendency of the contract at the time when it was entered into.

Word History and Origins

Origin of public policy¹

First recorded in 1775–85

Example Sentences

They were discussing public policy and existing law.

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He had sat on the chain’s Public Responsibility Committee helping to evaluate political and public policy concerns, while helping to oversee Cracker Barrel’s advertising.

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In 2019 he went so far as to declare that wealth inequality was not a proper subject for public policy: “I do not think a focus on wealth inequality as a basis for being concerned about a more just society is terribly well-designed,” Summers told an audience at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

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I have to convince myself that it’s worth it and that I’m making some sort of change, either to someone’s perspective, to public policy, to lawmakers, to just regular people who are learning about the world through my pictures and my stories.

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In what Mr. Hoyos calls “an amoral act of public policy,” Scipio massacred the townspeople of Ilugo for killing survivors of his father’s and uncle’s defeats who had sought refuge there five years earlier.

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