n. The act or habit of obeying; dutiful compliance with a command, prohibition, or known law and rule prescribed; submission to authority: as, to reduce a refractory person to obedience.n. Words or action expressive of reverence or dutifulness; obeisance.n. A collective body of those who adhere to some particular authority: as, the king's obedience; specifically, the collective body of those who adhere or yield obedience to an ecclesiastical authority: as, the Roman obedience, or the churches of the Roman obedience (that is, the aggregate of persons or of national churches acknowledging the authority of the Pope).n. Eccles.: A written precept or other formal instrument by which a superior in a religious order communicates to one of his dependents any special admonition or instruction.n. In Roman Catholic monasteries, any ecclesiastical and official position, with the estate and profits belonging to it, which is subordinate to the abbot's jurisdiction.