Definition of "obedience" []

• The quality or condition of being obedient. (noun)
• The act of obeying. (noun)
• A sphere of ecclesiastical authority. (noun)
• A group of people under such authority. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "While the parent must thus take care to establish the _principle of authority_ as the ground of obedience on the part of his children, and must not make their doing what he requires any the less acts of _obedience_, through vainly attempting to diminish the hardship of obeying a command by mingling the influence of reasonings and persuasions with it, he may in other ways do all in his power -- and that will be a great deal -- to make the acts of obedience easy, or, at least, to diminish the difficulty of them and the severity of the trial which they often bring to the child."
• "He declares that his job is to help “win obedience from the Gentiles.”"
• "The word obedience made me smile through my tears."