dispensation

dispensation
    n 1: an exemption from some rule or obligation
    2: a share that has been dispensed or distributed
    3: the act of dispensing (giving out in portions)
    

Dispensation \Dis`pen*sa"tion\, n. [F. dispensation, L.
   dispensatio.]
   1. The act of dispensing or dealing out; distribution; often
      used of the distribution of good and evil by God to man,
      or more generically, of the acts and modes of his
      administration.
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            To respect the dispensations of Providence. --Burke.
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   2. That which is dispensed, dealt out, or appointed; that
      which is enjoined or bestowed; especially (Theol.), A
      system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and
      administered; scheme; economy; as, the Patriarchal,
      Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.
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            Neither are God's methods or intentions different in
            his dispensations to each private man. --Rogers.
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   3. The relaxation of a law in a particular case; permission
      to do something forbidden, or to omit doing something
      enjoined; specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church,
      exemption from some ecclesiastical law or obligation to
      God which a man has incurred of his own free will (oaths,
      vows, etc.).
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            A dispensation was obtained to enable Dr. Barrow to
            marry.                                --Ward.
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Dispensation
(Gr. oikonomia, "management," "economy"). (1.) The method or
scheme according to which God carries out his purposes towards
men is called a dispensation. There are usually reckoned three
dispensations, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic or Jewish, and the
Christian. (See {COVENANT}, Administration of.) These
were so many stages in God's unfolding of his purpose of grace
toward men. The word is not found with this meaning in
Scripture.

  (2.) A commission to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:17; Eph.
1:10; 3:2; Col. 1:25).

  Dispensations of Providence are providential events which
affect men either in the way of mercy or of judgement.
    

125 Moby Thesaurus words for "dispensation":
      OK, abandonment, abjuration, administration, admission, allowance,
      attenuation, blank check, broadcast, broadcasting, carte blanche,
      cession, charter, circumfusion, civil government, command function,
      consent, copyright, courtesy, creation, decision-making,
      diffraction, diffusion, dilution, direction, disbursal,
      disbursement, discipline, dispersal, dispersion, disposal,
      disposition, dissemination, dissipation, distribution, divergence,
      dole, doling, doling out, dumping, empery, empire, evaporation,
      executive function, expansion, favor, forgoing, form of government,
      forswearing, fragmentation, franchise, freedom, getting rid of,
      giving out, giving up, governance, government, grant, immunity,
      indulgence, issuance, kindness, leave, letting go, liberty,
      license, management, officiation, okay, oversight, passing around,
      patent, paying out, peppering, permission, permission to enter,
      political organization, polity, preservation, privilege,
      propagation, providence, publication, radiation, recantation,
      regime, regimen, regnancy, regulation, reign, release,
      relinquishment, renunciation, resignation, retraction, riddance,
      rule, sacrifice, scattering, scatterment, service, shotgun pattern,
      sovereignty, sowing, spattering, special favor, special permission,
      splay, spread, spreading, sprinkling, strewing, supervision,
      surrender, sway, swearing off, system of government, ticket,
      ticket of admission, visitations of providence, volatilization,
      vouchsafement, waiver, warrant, yielding