Authority is the power to command. Authority or The Authority may also refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

*'' Authority (album)'', a 2014 album by British electronic music group Client * "Authority" (''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit''), a ninth-season episode of ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'' *'' Authority (Southern Reach Trilogy)'', a 2014 book by Jeff VanderMeer, the second book in the Southern Reach trilogy * ''The Authority'' (comics), superhero comic book published by DC Comics, under the Wildstorm imprint, debuting in 1999 *'' The Authority'', ''His Dark Materials'' character who debuts in the 2000 novel ''The Amber Spyglass'' *''The Authority'', used by the autonomous council of vampire hierarchs in ''

The Southern Vampire Mysteries ''The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', also known as ''The True Blood Novels'' and ''The Sookie Stackhouse Novels'', is a series of books written by bestselling author Charlaine Harris. The first installment, '' Dead Until Dark'' (2001), won the A ...

'' novels and the TV series ''

True Blood ''True Blood'' is an American fantasy horror drama television series produced and created by Alan Ball. It is based on '' The Southern Vampire Mysteries'', a series of novels by Charlaine Harris. A reboot is currently in development. The ser ...

'' based on the novels

Internet

*Authority, a grading of a blog's worthiness, used by

Technorati Technorati was a search engine and a publisher advertising platform that served as an advertising solution for the thousands of websites in its network. Technorati launched its ad network in 2008, and at one time was one of the largest ad network ...

*Authority, one of two scores assigned by the

HITS algorithm Hyperlink-Induced Topic Search (HITS; also known as hubs and authorities) is a link analysis algorithm that rates Web pages, developed by Jon Kleinberg. The idea behind Hubs and Authorities stemmed from a particular insight into the creation of we ...

, a scheme used for ranking web pages (also known as hubs and authorities)

Law

*Legal authority, a

right Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical ...

or permission to do something **Legal authority to arrest someone, known as the

power of arrest The power of arrest is a mandate given by a central authority that allows an individual to remove a criminal's (or suspected criminal's) liberty. The power of arrest can also be used to protect a person, or persons from harm or to protect damage t ...

*Authority, one of the

sources of law Sources of law are the origins of laws, the binding rules that enable any state to govern its territory. The term "source of law" may sometimes refer to the sovereign or to the seat of power from which the law derives its validity. Jurispruden ...

in a particular legal system ** Primary authority **

Secondary authority In law, a secondary authority is an authority purporting to explain the meaning or applicability of the actual verbatim texts of primary authorities (such as constitutions, statutes, case law, administrative regulations, executive orders, treat ...

*Authority in the

law of agency The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the ...

, the ability of an agent to legally bind a principal ** Apparent authority **

Actual authority The law of agency is an area of commercial law dealing with a set of contractual, quasi-contractual and non-contractual fiduciary relationships that involve a person, called the agent, that is authorized to act on behalf of another (called the p ...

* Rational-legal authority, a sociological concept

Organizations

* High Authority (disambiguation), any of several executive organizations or branches *

Palestinian National Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,

, the administrative organization established to govern the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a consequence of the 1994 Oslo Accords *

Police authority A police authority in the United Kingdom is a public authority that is responsible for overseeing the operations of a police force. The nature and composition of police authorities has varied over time, and there are now just four dedicated "police ...

(UK), a body charged with securing efficient and effective control of a territorial police area * Public authority, a government-chartered corporation such as a transit authority *

The Authority (professional wrestling) The Authority was a villainous professional wrestling stable in WWE, which originated due to Triple H helping Randy Orton win the WWE Championship from Daniel Bryan at the 2013 SummerSlam pay-per-view immediately after cashing in the Money in t ...

, a faction in WWE created by Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

Other uses

* Authority (management), formal or legitimate, specified in a charter * Authority (sociology), the legitimate or socially approved use of power *

Authority (textual criticism) The authority of a text is its reliability as a witness to the author's intentions. These intentions could be initial, medial or final, but intentionalist editors (most notably represented by Fredson Bowers and G. Thomas Tanselle editing school) ...

, a text's reliability as a witness to the author's intentions *

Appeal to authority An argument from authority (''argumentum ab auctoritate''), also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. Some con ...

, a type of argument in logic *

Authority control In information science, authority control is a process that organizes information, for example in library catalogs, by using a single, distinct spelling of a name (heading) or a numeric identifier for each topic. The word ''authority'' in ''au ...

, in library and information science, standardization of the names of entities *

Taxonomic authority In biology, taxonomy () is the scientific study of naming, defining ( circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxa (singular: taxon) and these groups are given ...

, the scientist who first validly published a taxon name

Arts, entertainment, and media

Internet

Law

Organizations

Other uses

See also