obedience

• oboedience (obsolete, rare)

From Anglo-Norman obedience, from Old French obedience (modern French obédience), from Latin oboedientia. Cognate with obeisance.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ə(ʊ)ˈbiːdɪəns/

• Audio (US)

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obedience (countable and uncountable, plural obediences)

1. The quality of being obedient.

   Obedience is essential in any army.

   • Thomas Jefferson

     Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter VIII

     Cautioning Nobs to silence, and he had learned many lessons in the value of obedience since we had entered Caspak, I slunk forward, taking advantage of whatever cover I could find...

2. The collective body of persons subject to any particular authority.
3. A written instruction from the superior of an order to those under him.
4. Any official position under an abbot's jurisdiction.

• hearsomeness (nonce word)
• submission

• disobedience, defiance, rebellion (ignoring)
• violation (ignoring, especially rules)
• control, dominance (ruling)

• obedient
• obeisance
• obey

• obedience in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• obedience in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

From Latin

obedience f (oblique plural obediences, nominative singular obedience, nominative plural obediences)

1. obedience
2. authority; influence; power

   Il comaunda par obedience Ke de la femme s’en issist

   He commanded by his authority that it (the evil spirit) come out of her