govern

Meanings

• bring into conformity with rules or principles or usage; impose regulations
• direct or strongly influence the behavior of
  • "His belief in God governs his conduct"
• exercise authority over; as of nations
  • "Who is governing the country now?"
• require to be in a certain grammatical case, voice, or mood
  • "most transitive verbs govern the accusative case in German"

Synonyms

order, regularise, regularize, regulate, rule