1570 J. Foxe Actes & Monumentes (rev. ed.) I. 6/1 Wher as now both the rule of scripture, & sanctions of the olde councels set a side, all thinges..are decised by certaine new decretall or rather extradecretal and extrauagant constitutions.

1577 W. Harrison Descr. Eng. (1877) ii. xix. i. 311 Canutus..did at the last make sundrie sanctions and decrees.

1583 P. Stubbes Second Pt. Anat. Abuses sig. C7 The breach or violation of any humane lawe, ordinance, constitution, statute, or sanction.

1660 Bp. J. Taylor Ductor Dubitantium I. ii. i. Rule 9 §9 But even in this original rule and great sanction God did dispense with the Israelites.

1668 J. Denham Poems 163 'Tis the first Sanction, Nature gave to Man, Each other to assist in what they can.

1670 R. Graham Angliæ Speculum Morale 105 The sanctions and constitutions of his own Nation.

1700 J. Dryden tr. Ovid Cinyras & Myrrha in Fables 176 Secure the sacred Quiet of thy Mind, And keep the Sanctions Nature has design'd.

1706 Phillips's New World of Words (new ed.) Sanction, Decree, Ordinance, especially such as relate to Ecclesiastical Affairs; as the Constitution made at the Council of Basil, for the Reformation of the Church.

1725 E. Fenton in A. Pope et al. tr. Homer Odyssey I. i. 107 Bid him..The Sanction of th' assembled pow'rs report: That wise Ulysses to his native land Must speed, obedient to their high command.

1844 S. R. Maitland Dark Ages 19 The bishop is to appoint priests and other prudent men, skilled in the divine law, and conversant with the ecclesiastical sanctions.

1681 Bp. S. Parker Demonstr. Divine Authority 72 The most powerfull and effectual Sanction in the World, viz. the Pleasures or Torments of Conscience.

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison VI. xix. 90 Religious zeal is a strengthener, a confirmer, of all the social sanctions.

1758 R. Price (title) A Review of the principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals. Particularly Those relating to the Original of our Ideas of Virtue, its Nature, Foundation, Reference to the Deity, Obligation, Subject-matter and Sanctions.

1780 J. Bentham Introd. Princ. Morals & Legisl. (1789) iii. §2 There are four distinguishable sources from which pleasure and pain are in use to flow: considered separately, they may be termed the physical, the political, the moral, and the religious: and inasmuch as the pleasures and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law or rule of conduct, they may all of them be termed sanctions.

1795 W. Paley View Evidences Christianity (ed. 3) II. ii. ii. 58 To supply, what was much more wanting than lessons of morality, stronger moral sanctions, and clearer assurances of a future judgement.

1817 J. Mill Hist. Brit. India II. v. ix. 709 The undivided reputation of good measures, the undivided ignominy of bad, redounded to the Court of Directors. The great sanction of public opinion therefore acted upon them with concentrated energy.

1861 J. S. Mill Utilitarianism iii. 39 With regard to any supposed moral standard—what is its sanction? what are the motives to obey it?

1874 H. Sidgwick Methods of Ethics (1890) ii. v. 164 These ‘sanctions’ we may classify as External and Internal. The former class will include both ‘Legal Sanctions’..and ‘Social Sanctions’.

1887 T. Fowler Princ. Morals ii. iii. 144 Physical sanctions are the pleasures and pains which follow naturally on the observance or violation of physical laws, the sanctions employed by society are praise and blame, the moral sanctions..are..the approval and disapproval of conscience; lastly, the religious sanctions are either the fear of future punishment, and the hope of future reward, or, to the higher religious sense, simply the love of God, and the dread of displeasing Him.

1896 ‘M. Field’ Attila iv. 102 For he rejects our sanctions, he is bound By nothing we are bound by.

1611 B. Jonson Catiline i. sig. C4 There cannot be A fitter drinke, to make this Sanction in. Here, I beginne the Sacrament to all. View more context for this quotation

1738 tr. C. Rollin Anc. Hist. (ed. 2) II. 36 The Assyrian, regarding neither the sanction of oaths nor treaties, still continued the war.

a1745 J. Swift Serm. Testimony Consc. This Word [honour] is often made the Sanction of an Oath; it is reckoned a great Commendation to be a Man of strict Honour.

1817 P. B. Shelley Laon & Cythna x. xxix. 226 We swear by thee! and to our oath do thou Give sanction, from thine hell of fiends and flame.

1869 E. A. Freeman Hist. Norman Conquest III. xii. 242 When he knew by how awful a sanction he had unwittingly bound his soul.

1658 E. Phillips New World Eng. Words Sanction, a decreeing, enacting, or establishing, any Law or Ordinance.

1660 Bp. J. Taylor Ductor Dubitantium I. ii. i. Rule 1 §41 It became a law only by the authority and proper sanction of God.

c1680 W. Beveridge Serm. (1729) I. 85 All which laws have their..sanction from the supreme lawgiver.

1699 T. Baker Refl. Learning xiv. 167 As to Lancelottus's Book of Institutes, which Dr. Duck seems to make a part of the Corpus, he is therein mistaken, for wanting Sanction and Authority, it is only yet a private work.

1785 W. Cowper Epist. to J. Hill in Task 288 Else could a law like that which I relate, Once have the sanction of our triple state.

1838 C. Thirlwall Hist. Greece (new ed.) IV. xxxii. 221 It even appears that a decree might be first moved in the Assembly, and then be sent up to receive the formal sanction of the Council, which could not be withheld.

1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. I. i. 85 The day on which the royal sanction was, after many delays, solemnly given to this great Act, was a day of joy and hope.

1875 H. J. S. Maine Lect. Early Hist. Inst. ii. 27 Thus when a body of Brehon judgments was promulgated by an Irish chief to a tribal assembly it is probable that convenience was the object sought rather than a new sanction.

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison II. xlv. (III. xiii) I cannot forgive myself—To suffer myself to be provoked by two such men, to violate the sanction of my own house!

1968 Guardian 25 Apr. 1/8 British citizens would be able to come to Britain from Rhodesia ‘unless they are known sanction breakers or supporters of the illegal regime’.

1973 Times 8 June 27/1 (heading) Dutch move to stop the sanction busters.

1973 Guardian 16 Apr. 1/6 The Smith regime in Rhodesia has carried out its most spectacular coup in sanction-busting..with the triumphant announcement that three Boeing-707 jet airliners have been delivered.

1974 A. Williams Gentleman Traitor xii. 186 He studied the..South African and Rhodesian economies, and how these interlocked with the complex methods of Sanction-Busting.

1970 D. Goldrich et al. in I. L. Horowitz Masses in Lat. Amer. v. 192 We can project the possibility..of sanction-induced parochialism on the part of formerly more highly politicalized actors.

1980 T. Keene & B. Haynes Spyship xv. 170 You'd like the Sanction, I take it?.. Reestablish contact when Sanction is completed.

1983 P. Niesewand Scimitar xiv. 378 His apartment was on the third floor, so the agents knew they would have to use another method of sanction... It was clear that Ross alone would kill that night while Lyle watched.

1988 ‘R. Deacon’ Spyclopaedia 411 Sanction, intelligence agency approval for a killing.

1778 T. Jefferson Autobiogr. App., in Wks. (1859) I. 146 Preserving..the very words of the established law, wherever their meaning had been sanctioned by judicial decisions.

1785 W. Cowper Task v. 548 That charter sanction'd sure By th' unimpeachable and awful oath And promise of a God!

1791 E. Burke Appeal New to Old Whigs 12 Tests against old principles, sanctioned by the laws.

1823 J. Marshall Writings upon Federal Constit. (1839) 284 The titles held under the Indians were sanctioned by length of possession.

1838 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Ferdinand & Isabella I. i. iii. 76 They entered into a covenant, sanctioned by all the solemnities of religion usual on these occasions, not to reënter [etc.].

1825 R. Whately Ess. Peculiarities Christian Relig. i. 45 The temporal rewards and punishments..which sanctioned that Law.

1832 J. Austin Province Jurispr. i. 8 The command or the duty is said to be sanctioned or enforced by the chance of incurring the evil.

1832 J. Austin Province Jurispr. (1873) I. 522 Laws are sometimes sanctioned by nullities.

1956 Universe 27 July 1/1 (heading) Let Church sanction road killers.

1978 Daily Mail 29 Nov. 9/1 Sir Geoffrey Howe..referred to Ford's being ‘sanctioned’... Nobody..made a protest about this violence being done to the English language (or about normal meanings being stood on their head).

1991 Brit. Jrnl. Criminol. 21 337 The table shows, for each group, the mean number of crime occasions, the mean number of sanctions applied, and the percentage of subjects who at least once had been relatively severely sanctioned.

2019 New Yorker 24 Dec. 52/2 A replacement for the SWIFT financial-transaction system, independent of the U.S., that would allow European companies to keep doing business with Iran, which has been sanctioned by the U.S.