Emily Dickinson Lexicon

DIS'CI-PLINE, n. [L. disciplina, from disco, to learn.]

1. Education; instruction; cultivation and improvement, comprehending instruction in arts, sciences, correct sentiments, morals and manners, and due subordination to authority.
2. Instruction and government, comprehending the communication of knowledge and the regulation of practice; as, military discipline, which includes instruction in manual exercise, evolutions and subordination.
3. Rule of government; method of regulating principles and practice; as, the discipline prescribed for the church.
4. Subjection to laws, rules, order, precepts or regulations; as, the troops are under excellent discipline; the passions should be kept under strict discipline.
5. Correction; chastisement; punishment intended to correct crimes or errors; as, the discipline of the strap. – Addison.
6. In ecclesiastical affairs, the execution of the laws by which the church is governed, and infliction of the penalties enjoined against offenders, who profess the religion of Jesus Christ. – Encyc.
7. Chastisement or bodily punishment inflicted on a delinquent in the Romish church; or that chastisement or external mortification which a religious person inflicts on himself. – Taylor. Encyc.