In·sti·tute, n.
 1. The act of instituting; institution. [Obs.] “Water sanctified by Christ's institute.”
 2. That which is instituted, established, or fixed, as a law, habit, or custom.
 3. Hence: An elementary and necessary principle; a precept, maxim, or rule, recognized as established and authoritative; usually in the plural, a collection of such principles and precepts; esp., a comprehensive summary of legal principles and decisions; as, the Institutes of Justinian; Coke's Institutes of the Laws of England.  Cf. Digest, n.
    They made a sort of institute and digest of anarchy.   --Burke.
    To make the Stoics' institutes thy own.   --Dryden.
 4. An institution; a society established for the promotion of learning, art, science, etc.; a college; as, the Institute of Technology; The Massachusetts Institute of Technology; also, a building owned or occupied by such an institute; as, the Cooper Institute.
 5. Scots Law The person to whom an estate is first given by destination or limitation.
 Institutes of medicine, theoretical medicine; that department of medical science which attempts to account philosophically for the various phenomena of health as well as of disease; physiology applied to the practice of medicine.

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