1. A book containing an alphabetical list of names, addresses, and telephone numbers, esp. those of a city’s or area’s residents and businesses. [Cases: Telecommunications 269. C.J.S. Telegraphs, Telephones, Radio, and Television § 120.]
2. Any organization’s publication containing information on its members or business, such as a legal directory.
3. Eccles. law. A church’s book of directions for conducting worship. • One of the primary directories is the Directory for the Public Worship of God, prepared by the Assembly of Divines in England in 1644 to take the place of the Book of Common Prayer, which had been abolished by Parliament (and was later reinstated). The Directory was ratified by Parliament in 1645 and adopted by the Scottish Parliament and General Assembly of the Church of Scotland that same year. A directory in the Roman Catholic Church contains instructions for saying the mass and offices each day of the year.
4. A small governing body; specif., the five-member executive body that governed France from 1795 to 1799 during the French Revolution until it was overthrown by Napoleon and succeeded by the consulate.
