(authorities)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
The authorities are the people who have the power to make decisions and to make sure that laws are obeyed.
This provided a pretext for the authorities to cancel the elections...
N-PLURAL: oft the N
2.
An ~ is an official organization or government department that has the power to make decisions.
...the Health Education Authority...
Any alterations had to meet the approval of the local planning ~.
N-COUNT: usu with supp, oft in names
see also local ~
3.
Authority is the right to command and control other people.
The judge had no ~ to order a second trial.
N-UNCOUNT
4.
If someone has ~, they have a quality which makes other people take notice of what they say.
He had no natural ~ and no capacity for imposing his will on others.
N-UNCOUNT
5.
Authority is official permission to do something.
The prison governor has refused to let him go, saying he must first be given ~ from his own superiors.
= authorization
N-UNCOUNT
6.
Someone who is an ~ on a particular subject knows a lot about it.
He’s universally recognized as an ~ on Russian affairs.
= expert
N-COUNT: N on n
7.
If you say you have it on good ~ that something is true, you mean that you believe it is true because you trust the person who told you about it.
I have it on good ~ that there’s no way this light can cause skin cancer.
PHRASE: V inflects, PHR that