Something institutional is what you'd expect from a big entity like a college or corporation, such as the institutional cinder-block dorm room walls or the institutional policy of giving employees 10 sick days per year.
Accent the third syllable in institutional: "in-stih-TOO-shun-ul." The word institutional can be used to describe something related to an organization or a corporation, like institutional reform or institutional policies. Something that's institutional is often thought of as bland or boring, like the institutional food served to hospital patients. Institutional things often share, for better or worse, a certain sameness.
