dispensation

noun6

1. •
   The act of dispensing or dealing out; distribution

   • The public's health is hardly improved by compounding the existing problem with the dispensation of undocumented, partially true or totally false material. — 1976
2. •
   The relaxation of a law in a particular case; permission to do something forbidden, or to omit doing something enjoined; exemption.

   • Special grounds for giving dispensation to see classified documents include research purposes. — 2003
3. •
   In the Roman Catholic Church, an exemption from some ecclesiastical law, or from an obligation to God which a person has incurred of his own free will (oaths, vows, etc.).

   • [H]e had a dispensation for conforming in outward observances to the Protestant faith. — 1822
4. •
   The distribution of good and evil by God to man.

   • Shall we not accompt these a part of Gods dispensation, and therefore good in the Fountaine, from whence they flowed — 1625
5. •
   A system of principles, promises, and rules ordained and administered; scheme; economy

   • We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. — 1927
6. •
   That which is dispensed, dealt out, or given; that which is bestowed on someone

   • Bowman certainly lost no time in travelling south to obtain his dispensation once he had published the sermon — 2016