enabling act
- noun
- Formal
:
ley habilitante
- Notably, most localities did not have comprehensive plans when they passed their first zoning ordinances under enabling acts.
Examples
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The enabling act provided the necessary legal framework for the organization to begin its work.
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Homeland Security has heaped upon regulatory lawyers of all stripes the chore of keeping up with a barrage of new rules that implement its enabling act and redirect the priorities of the agencies absorbed from other government entities.
Academic text (2003) -
The NDAA is an enabling act.
Blog text (12) -
By 1926, the year of the Euclid decision, all but five states had passed zoning enabling acts, most of them based on the SZEA.
Academic text (2001) -
I seem to recall that an NC post referred to the Congressional "supercommittee" as an enabling act, although what it enabled ended up being exactly nothing.
Blog text (12) -
The government passed an enabling act to allow local officials to enforce new regulations.
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Many states have adopted enabling acts that grant cities the authority to manage land use effectively.
Synonyms
693
4.4
Laws made and passed by a parliament or other elected body
267
5.5
A law officially passed by a parliament or congress
1
6.3
A law that gives authorities power to make people follow rules and carry out policies
1
5.5
A law passed by a parliament or congress
A part of a law that lets officials enforce it
How Authorizing
- Formal
1
6.3
- Formal
- Formal
- Formal
313
5.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally transparent: 'enabling' means giving authority or power and 'act' means a statute, so together they denote a law that grants power. Although it's a legal term, the modifier+noun structure directly conveys the meaning and a B1 learner who knows both words can reasonably infer it.
Etymology
The noun enabling act comes from a simple idea: it is an act that enables someone by giving officials the 'power' or 'ability' to act. That's why it means a law that lets the government or agencies make and carry out rules.