Pronunciation: (ad-min"u-strā'shun), [key]
1. the management of any office, business, or organization; direction.
2. the function of a political state in exercising its governmental duties.
3. the duty or duties of an administrator in exercising the executive functions of the position.
4. the management by an administrator of such duties.
5. a body of administrators, esp. in government.
6. (often cap.) the executive branch of the U.S. government as headed by the President and in power during his or her term of office: The Administration has threatened to veto the new bill. The Reagan administration followed President Carter's.
7. the period of service of a governmental administrator or body of governmental administrators.
8. any group entrusted with executive or administrative powers: the administration of a college.
9. Law.management of a decedent's estate by an executor or administrator, or of a trust estate by a trustee.
10. an act of dispensing, esp. formally: administration of the sacraments.
11. supervision of the taking of an oath or the like.
12. application, as of a salve or medicine.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.