[f. ENABLE v. + -ING2.] That enables: chiefly of legislative enactments. Enabling statute: sometimes applied spec. to the act 32 Hen. VIII. c. 28, by which tenants-in-fee and certain other persons were ‘enabled’ to make leases.
1677. Feltham, Resolves, I. viii. 11 (ed. 10). It … wounds him, to the loss of inabling Blood.
1851. Helps, Comp. Solit., xii. (1874), 221. Enabling powers.
1881. Times, 17 Jan., 13/4. Mr. Crump urged that the statute was ‘enabling.’
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 7 Nov., 1/2. The enabling bill … is only a draft measure.
