or Ordonnance, means a law, statute, or command of a sovereign or superior. Thus the acts of parliament are sometimes termed "ordinances of parliament," as in the parliament rolls; although in some cases we find a difference made between the two, ordinances being only temporary things, by way of prohibition, and capable of being altered by the commons alone, whereas an act is a perpetual law, and cannot be altered except by king, lords, and commons.

Coke asserts, that an ordinance of parliament differs from an act, as the latter can only be made by the three-fold consent of the estates; whereas the former may be made by one or two of the estates.

In the French jurisprudence, ordinances are such laws as are established by the king's authority alone.