往下發放的動作
這一族就是核心畫面本身：籃子裡的東西一份一份發下去。
noun · C2
The act of giving something out to people, especially when an official body does it as part of its job — justice, aid, money, medicine and so on.
發放；施行
核心畫面
Picture someone standing above a crowd with a full basket, handing things down one portion at a time. What comes down can be justice, food, money or medicine. It can also be a single slip of paper saying that one person does not have to follow a rule everyone else follows. And the whole arrangement — who hands out what, to whom, and by what rules in this period of history — can itself be called the dispensation. The act, the thing handed down, and the system behind it all share one word.
「dispensation」可以想成這樣一個畫面：有個人站在高處，手裡端著一籃東西，一份一份往下發。發下來的可能是正…更多收起
「dispensation」可以想成這樣一個畫面：有個人站在高處，手裡端著一籃東西，一份一份往下發。發下來的可能是正義、食物、錢或藥。也可能只是一張紙，上面寫著「這條規定對你不算數」。而「誰來發、發給誰、照什麼規矩發」這整套安排本身，也能叫作 dispensation。動作、發下來的東西、背後那套制度，三層共用同一個字。From the word’s history
The packet's Wiktionary entry gives Old French despensacion and Latin dispensātiō, and analyses the modern word as dispense + -ation — the act, or the result, of dispensing.
packet 裡的 Wiktionary 資料記載它來自古法文 despensacion、拉丁文 dispensātiō，並把現代字形拆成 dispense（發放）＋ -ation（動作或動作的結果）。「發放這個動作」與「發放出來的那樣東西」因此本來就共用一個字。
Wiktionary entry supplied in this packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:637473619:20279)
Three branches
發下來的那一張特許
如果籃子裡發下來的不是東西，而是一句「這條規定對你不算數」，發下來的就是一張特許。
noun · C1
Special permission from someone in authority, very often a religious leader, that lets one person do something the rules do not normally allow, or skip something the rules normally require.
特許；豁免
一整個時代的安排
把鏡頭拉遠，不看單次的發放，而看「誰發、發給誰、照什麼規矩」這整套安排——那套安排本身就成了一個字。
noun · C2
A religious or political system that runs people's lives during one particular period of history, thought of as one whole arrangement that came before or after another one.
（某個時代的）體制