ppl. a. Exhibiting good order; rightly regulated; carefully arranged; following good lines of conduct or procedure.
1606. Shaks., Tr. & Cr., II. ii. 180. There is a Law in each well-ordred Nation To curbe those raging appetites that are Most disobedient and refracturie.
1615. Chapman, Odyss., XIX. 158. Nothing else, the cause Of all these blessings, but well order’d Lawes.
1668. R. Steele, Husbandman’s Calling, v. (1672), 96. Well-ordered charity makes no man poor.
1710. Atterbury, Serm. (1734), I. 318. A Vertuous and Well-ordered Life.
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 417, ¶ 5. The Æneid is like a well ordered Garden.
1768–74. Tucker, Lt. Nat. (1834), II. 23. It is of the utmost importance to have a well-ordered imagination.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xviii. (1787), II. 116. The well-ordered ranks of Romans and Barbarians.
1841. Dickens, Barn. Rudge, xl. White, well-ordered teeth.
1877. Huxley, Techn. Educ., Sci. & Cult. (1881), 77. A well-ordered elementary school.
1886. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, xx. (ed. 3), 193. To church or chapel in the morning, at least, is the custom of most well-ordered persons in London.
