• A law or rule. • A law, or rule of doctrine or discipline, enacted by a council and confirmed by the pope or the sovereign; a decision, regulation, code, or constitution made by ecclesiastical authority. • The collection of books received as genuine Holy Scriptures, called the sacred canon, or general rule of moral and religious duty, given by inspiration; the Bible; also, any one of the canonical Scriptures. See Canonical books, under Canonical, a. • In monasteries, a book containing the rules of a religious order. • A catalogue of saints acknowledged and canonized in the Roman Catholic Church. • A member of a cathedral chapter; a person who possesses a prebend in a cathedral or collegiate church. • A musical composition in which the voices begin one after another, at regular intervals, successively taking up the same subject. It either winds up with a coda (tailpiece), or, as each voice finishes, commences anew, thus forming a perpetual fugue or round. It is the strictest form of imitation. See Imitation. • The largest size of type having a specific name; -- so called from having been used for printing the canons of the church. • The part of a bell by which it is suspended; -- called also ear and shank. • See Carom.