institutional
/ɪnstɪˈtjuːʃ(ə)n(ə)l
/adjective
1Of, in, or like an institution or institutions: institutional care an institutional investor...
- Of those who survive, about another 20% will end up in institutional care who weren't in that before the stroke.
- Caring for someone in their own home is very different from institutional care.
- He does, however, reflect a shift in writers' economic practices and the institutional conditions of freelance practice.
1.1(Especially of surroundings) impersonal and unappealing: the rooms are rather drab and institutional...
- Coupled with the bleached out grey/green institutional wasteland of the hospital, a tense and unsettling atmosphere is created.
- Jim walked warily into the drab institutional room, nodding to the inhabitant.
- The shelter's inside will be brightened up by getting rid of its institutional yellow paint.
Synonyms
unappetizing, unpalatable, inedible, uneatable, distasteful, unsavoury, insipid, bland, tasteless, flavourless, savourless;
unappealing, uninviting, off-putting, unattractive, uninteresting, dull, unpleasant, disagreeable;
uniform, unvarying, unvaried, unchanging, monotonous, regimented
informal wishy-washy
dreary, dingy, dismal, gloomy, drab, colourless, grey, grim, cheerless, joyless, sombre, cold, depressing, impersonal, formal, off-putting, unwelcoming, uninviting, forbidding;
desolate, austere, severe, stark, spartan, bare, clinical, sterile
1.2Expressed through or organized in the form of institutions: institutional religion...
- Here, Chris focuses on what Weber called instrumental rationality, as exemplified in institutional religion.
- Nor is it critique of institutional religion - as if church hypocrisy or narrow dogma were keeping out the living God.
- Could institutional religion have outlived its usefulness?
Synonyms
organized, established, bureaucratic, accepted, orthodox, conventional, procedural, prescribed, set, routine, customary, formal, systematic, systematized, methodical, businesslike, ready, orderly, coherent, structured, regulated
informal establishment
1.3Established as a convention or norm in an organization or culture: institutional racism...
- The same cannot always be said for electric utilities, which are prone to conservatism and institutional inertia.
- The media of course has an institutional bias against good news.
- Affirmative action addresses entrenched company behaviours and helps to highlight institutional hiring biases.
2(Of advertising) intended to create prestige rather than immediate sales.Institutional advertising ‘sells’ the company's brand, mission, reputation and values.
Derivatives
institutionalism
/ noun ...- We have no such bricks-and-mortar institutionalism to counter, nor a safe structure within which to slowly develop.
- On the other hand, one can consider liberalism or liberal institutionalism as an alternative to realism and neorealism.
- One adaptation of an approach that was originally applied to the study of domestic politics that Hix drew upon was new institutionalism.