regimen
(ˈrɛdʒɪmən)
Also 5 Sc. regemen.
[a. L. regimen, f. regĕre to rule, direct, etc. Cf. OF. regimen (14th c.).]
1. a. The act of governing; government, rule.
| 1456 Sir G. Haye Law Arms (S.T.S.) 66 Quhare thare is na hede, regemen na ordinaunce, thare resoun naturale failis. 1535 Stewart Cron. Scot. I. 52 Baith sword and sceptour, regimen and croun. 1647 Clarendon Hist. Reb. ii. §128 The General himself, and the Martial affairs, were subject to this Regimen and Discipline as well as the Civil. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. 491 Others commonly assign him the Regimen of Separate Souls after Death. 1765 Blackstone Comm. I. 25 In the inns of court all sorts of regimen and academical superintendance..are found impracticable. 1827 Hallam Const. Hist. I. i. 2 The forms and principles of political regimen in these different nations became more divergent from each other. 1875 Tennyson Q. Mary iii. i, Sir, no woman's regimen Can save us. |
b. A particular form or kind of government; a regime; a prevailing system.
| a 1734 North Lives (1826) III. 362 Gentlemen's sons in the college, under the influence of such a regimen, will be exposed to the mischiefs of idleness, expense, and debauchery. 1792 A. Young Trav. France 529 Under the regimen of land-taxes, all foreigners residing in a kingdom absolutely escape taxation. 1837 Hallam Hist. Lit. i. vii. §45 Nothing is so apt to follow as sedition from a popular regimen. 1860 Mill Repr. Govt. (1865) 19/1 What sort of human beings can be formed under such a regimen? |
† c. The aggregate of those under some government; a class or kind. Obs. rare.
| [1660 Stanley Hist. Philos. ix. (1701) 347/2 The Soul of Pythagoras, being of the Regimine of Apollo, (whether as a Follower, or some other way more near to him).] 1709 Steele Tatler No. 68 ¶2, I have also a long List of Persons of Condition, who are certainly of the same Regimen with these Banditti. |
2. Med. a. The regulation of such matters as have an influence on the preservation or restoration of health; a particular course of diet, exercise, or mode of living, prescribed or adopted for this end; † a course of treatment employed for the cure of a wound. Cf. regiment 5.
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 60 In anoþer maner regimen Vndirstonde þat þe man.. schal not be lete blood in þe bigynnynge [etc.]. Ibid. 289 Þou schalt kepe him wiþ good regimen, & he schal vse no metis ne drinkis þat engendrith scharp blood & greet. 1646 G. Daniel Wks. (Grosart) I. 41 Things..Very behoofull to the Regimen Of health. 1693 tr. Blancard's Phys. Dict. (ed. 2), Regimen, a Word us'd in Physick, about ordering Diet, and the like. 1707 Floyer Physic. Pulse-Watch 197 If thereby the Pulse be alter'd to more frequency, we use a cool Regimen. 1764 Reid Inquiry i. §3 Would he not hope for his cure from physic and good regimen? 1830 Scott Demonol. i. 19 His physician received a grateful letter from him acknowledging the success of his regimen. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VI. 425 A strict regimen..being at the same time observed. |
b. transf. and fig.
| 1751 Johnson Rambler No. 89 ¶7 Active employment..is generally a necessary part of this intellectual regimen. 1777 Sheridan Sch. Scand. iii. iii, There's Sir Harry diets himself for gaming, and is now under a hazard regimen. 1862 Burton Bk. Hunter 97 ‘A course of reading’ as it is sometimes called, is a course of regimen for dwarfing the mind. |
3. Gram. The government of one word by another; the relation which one word in a sentence has to another depending on it.
| 1600 Holland Livy 2nd Index s.v. H–S, You must in this manner of speech understand millia for the regimen of the Genitive case. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. iv. 448 The Regimen of words doth concern their government of others. 1751 Harris Hermes Wks. (1841) 193 Hence..arises the grammatical regimen of the verb by its nominative, and of the accusative by its verb. 1824 L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 5) I. 328 The following sentences, which give the passive voice the regimen of an active verb, are very irregular. 1872 F. Hall False Philol. 84 The grammarians posit the absence of regimen as one of the differential features of a conjunction. |
† 4. Alch. (See quot.) Obs. rare—0.
| 1727–38 Chambers Cycl., Regimen, in chymistry and alchymy, is the method of ordering and conducting any thing, that it may answer it's intention. Thus, regimen of fire, is the manner of making and ordering fire, and the degrees thereof. [From Dict. de Trévoux s.v. Régime.] |
5. Physical Geogr. = régime, regime 3 a.
| 1810 Encycl. Brit. XVIII. 65/1 We shall..learn the mutual action of the current and its bed, and the circumstances which ensure the stability of both. These we may call the regimen or the conservation of the stream, and may say that it is in regimen or in conservation. 1851 Min. Proc. Inst. Civil Engineers X. 231 Experiments and observations were made on the velocity and regimen of the stream. 1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. XI. 584/2 Most natural streams are in regimen. 1971 R. F. Flint Glacial & Quaternary Geol. iii. 47 It will be useful to follow the practice of engineers in reference to streams of water, and refer to the system or activity of the glacier as a whole, based on its meteorology, economy, rate and possible type of flow, and fluctuation, as the regimen of the glacier. The term, applied to glaciers as well as streams, is not quantitatively precise; it is broadly descriptive. |
Hence reˈgimenal a. = regiminal.
| 1866 Flint Princ. Med. (1880) 215 The correctness of this view of the regimenal management of the disease. 1874 Bucknill & Tuke Man. Psych. Med. (ed. 3) 687 The treatment is medicinal and regimenal. |