policy

1. 1.

   a plan of action adopted by an individual or social group

   “it was a policy of retribution”

   “a politician keeps changing his policies”

   Broaderplan of action

   Narroweractivismbeggar-my-neighbor policycentralismcontainmentmoderationismobscurantismThatcherismultramontanism
2. 2.

   a line of argument rationalizing the course of action of a government

   “they debated the policy or impolicy of the proposed legislation”

   Broaderargumentation

   Narrowerclericalismplankeconomic policysocial policyparty lineforeign policyzero-tolerance policyZionism
3. 3.

   written contract or certificate of insurance

   “you should have read the small print on your policy”

   Synonymsinsurance policyinsurance

   Broadercontract

   Narrowerfloater

Other forms of policy

plural

policies·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about policy

What does policy mean?

policy means "a plan of action adopted by an individual or social group". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in policy?

policy has 3 syllables: po-li-cy. The stress falls on "po". In IPA it is /ˈpɑləsi/.

What is another word for policy?

Close synonyms include insurance policy, insurance. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is policy a common word?

policy is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.