ordonnance
(ˈɔːdənəns, or, as F., ɔrdɔnɑ̃s)
[a. mod.F. ordonnance, for OF. ordenance: see ordinance.]
1. Systematic arrangement, esp. of literary material, architectural parts or features, or the details of any work of art; a plan or method of literary or artistic composition; an order of architecture.
| 1644 Evelyn Diary 20 Nov., A Church..for outward forme not comparable to St. Peter's, being of Gotiq ordonance. 1712 Steele Spect. No. 552 ¶1, I found his spacious warehouses fill'd and adorn'd with tea, China and Indian ware. I could observe a beautiful ordonnance of the whole. 1723 Chambers tr. Le Clerc's Treat. Archit. I. 22 Columns that have Pedestals, are in a more stately Ordonnance than those which have none. Ibid. 140 Two Ordonnances of Architecture shou'd never be placed within one another. 1776 Sir J. Reynolds Disc. vii. (1876) 413 Disproportionate ordonnance of parts. 1817 Coleridge Biog. Lit. xviii. (1882) 174 [Difference] between the ordonnance of poetic composition and that of prose. 1885 Athenæum 22 Aug. 246/2 The ordonnance of the typography..is at once simple, perspicuous, and compact. |
2. In reference to France and other continental countries: An ordinance, decree, law, or by-law; spec. in France, (a) under the monarchy, a decree of the king or the regent; applied esp. to the partial codes issued by Louis XIV and his successors; (b) an order of a criminal court.
For the ordonnances of Charles X, 1830, see ordinance 7.
| 1756 Johnson K. of Prussia Wks. IV. 551 The ordonance of 1667, by which Lewis the Fourteenth established an uniformity of procedure. 1761 Hist. in Ann. Reg. 67 An ordonance was issued at Copenhagen..prohibiting the importation of foreign tobacco. 1815 Hobhouse Substance Lett. (1816) I. 78 Only three days after the publication of the charter, the director-general of the police issued two ordonnances in open contradiction to the fifth and sixty-eighth articles. 1839 James Louis XIV, III. 208 The criminal code did not appear till 1670; though an ordonnance affecting the marine had been promulgated in the preceding year. 1878 Grove's Dict. Mus. I. 7 The ‘vagrants’ met each new ordonnance with a new evasion. |
b. (In full, company of ordonnance, († ordinance), F. compagnie d'ordonnance). A name applied to organized companies of men-at-arms which formed the beginnings of a standing army in France. So called from the ordonnance royale of 2 Nov. 1437 by which they were created.
‘Gensdarmes des Ordonnances. The ordinary men of Armes of France; first reduced by Charles the seuenth into certaine Companies, and under particular Orders’ (Cotgr.).
| [1601 R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. (1603) 17 Charles the seventh reduced these Ordinances to perfection, made the number certaine, appointed their wages. Ibid. 18 He likewise devided these Ordinances into men at armes and archers.] 1752 Carte Hist. Eng. III. 47 If Scotland was attacked, Francis was to aid them with 100,000 crowns, 1500 lance⁓quenets and 200 archers of ordonnance. 1823 Scott Quentin D. v, Here are my companies of ordonnance—here are my French Guards. 1843 Prescott Mexico vi. ii. (1864) 340 The famous ordonnance of Charles the Bold, the best-appointed cavalry of their day. |
† 3. Occasional early spelling of ordnance.