authority

Definitions

auctor (originator) + -ity (state/quality), via Latin auctoritas 'the standing of the originator.' Authority is the weight that belongs to the one who originates — which is why the same word can mean the power itself, the people who hold it (the authorities), and an expert whose word is decisive.

Why It Means This

Why one word for three things? In Latin, auctoritas was the moral weight of the source — the originator's standing. English keeps all three faces of that weight: the abstract power to command, the concrete people who wield it, and the expert whose say-so settles a matter. They're not separate meanings so much as the same 'weight of the source' pointed at a right, a body, or a person.

Common Collocations

• 1.authority figure权威人物
• 2.local authority地方当局
• 3.the authorities当局
• 4.an authority on……方面的权威
• 5.in authority掌权的

Example Sentences

• 1.

  The manager has the authority to approve budgets up to a million dollars.

• 2.

  Local authorities are responsible for collecting rubbish and maintaining roads.

• 3.

  She is a leading authority on medieval architecture.

• 4.

  The police acted on the authority of a court order.

Easily Confused

authority vs power — power is the raw ability to make things happen; authority is power that is recognized as legitimate, granted by one's role or standing. A mob has power without authority; a judge has authority. Also authority (the right/the body) vs authorities (almost always 'the officials in charge').