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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Dispensation \Dis'pen*sa"tion\, noun [F. dispensation, L. dispensatio.]
1. The act of dispensing or dealing out; distribution; often used of the distribution of good and evil by God to man, or more generically, of the acts and modes of his administration.
To respect the dispensations of Providence. --Burke.
2. That which is dispensed, dealt out, or appointed; that which is enjoined or bestowed; especially (Theol.), A system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; scheme; economy; as, the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.
Neither are God's methods or intentions different in his dispensations to each private man. --Rogers.
3. The relaxation of a law in a particular case; permission to do something forbidden, or to omit doing something enjoined; specifically, in the Roman Catholic Church, exemption from some ecclesiastical law or obligation to God which a man has incurred of his own free will (oaths, vows, etc.).
A dispensation was obtained to enable Dr. Barrow to marry. --Ward.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
dispensation
noun
1: an exemption from some rule or obligation
2: a share that has been dispensed or distributed
3: the act of dispensing (giving out in portions)
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
125 Moby Thesaurus words for "dispensation": OK, abandonment, abjuration, administration, admission, allowance, attenuation, blank check, broadcast, broadcasting, carte blanche, cession, charter, circumfusion, civil government, command function, consent, copyright, courtesy, creation, decision-making, diffraction, diffusion, dilution, direction, disbursal, disbursement, discipline, dispersal, dispersion, disposal, disposition, dissemination, dissipation, distribution, divergence, dole, doling, doling out, dumping, empery, empire, evaporation, executive function, expansion, favor, forgoing, form of government, forswearing, fragmentation, franchise, freedom, getting rid of, giving out, giving up, governance, government, grant, immunity, indulgence, issuance, kindness, leave, letting go, liberty, license, management, officiation, okay, oversight, passing around, patent, paying out, peppering, permission, permission to enter, political organization, polity, preservation, privilege, propagation, providence, publication, radiation, recantation, regime, regimen, regnancy, regulation, reign, release, relinquishment, renunciation, resignation, retraction, riddance, rule, sacrifice, scattering, scatterment, service, shotgun pattern, sovereignty, sowing, spattering, special favor, special permission, splay, spread, spreading, sprinkling, strewing, supervision, surrender, sway, swearing off, system of government, ticket, ticket of admission, visitations of providence, volatilization, vouchsafement, waiver, warrant, yielding
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Dispensation (Gr. oikonomia, "management," "economy"). (1.) The method or scheme according to which God carries out his purposes towards men is called a dispensation. There are usually reckoned three dispensations, the Patriarchal, the Mosaic or Jewish, and the Christian. (See {COVENANT}, Administration of.) These were so many stages in God's unfolding of his purpose of grace toward men. The word is not found with this meaning in Scripture. (2.) A commission to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 9:17; Eph. 1:10; 3:2; Col. 1:25). Dispensations of Providence are providential events which affect men either in the way of mercy or of judgement.
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