[f. ENACT v. + -MENT.]
1. The action of enacting (a law).
1817. Earl Liverpool, Sp., in Evans Parl. Deb. I. 586. The enactment of the present bill.
1818. Cobbett, Pol. Reg., XXXIII. 604. The enactment of them only confirmed men in their opinion.
1825. T. Jefferson, Autobiog., Wks. 1859, I. App. 113. The laws of the State, as well of British as of Colonial enactment.
1868. Milman, St. Paul’s, viii. 169. The enactment of the Six Articles.
b. The state or fact of being enacted.
1885. Law Times, 137/1. The draft Criminal Code … appears to be no … nearer to enactment than it was three years ago.
2. That which is enacted; an ordinance of a legislative authority, a statute.
1821. Syd. Smith, Edin. Rev., Wks. 1859, I. 334/2. A prison is a place where men … should be made unhappy by public lawful enactments.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), I. i. 34. Many general enactments of this reign bear the same character of servility.
1862. Fraser’s Mag., Nov., 635. Glass manufactories were crippled by harassing enactments.
1876. Green, Short Hist., v. § 2 (1882), 225. A crowd of enactments for the regulation of trade.
b. pl. The particular provisions of a law.
1839. Thirlwall, Greece, III. 83. We know neither the occasion which gave rise to it, nor the precise nature and extent of its enactments.
1845. McCulloch, Taxation, II. x. (1852), 353. The enactments were such as might be expected to follow a preamble of this sort.
3. The acting of a part er character in a play. rare–0.
In mod. Dicts.
