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To give an authoritative or decisive command or order
“The chief executive must firmly dictate that inferior products will not be allowed to leave the plant.”
To enact or establish (a rule or law)
“It is, of course, impossible to dictate a law that pictures must of necessity be always warm and yellowish in front, and blue or coldish at the back.”
To determine or decisively affect
“All the more reason to allow market forces, rather than misguided and punitive regulation, to dictate the choices available to consumers.”
To behave in a domineering fashion over
“Again and again, he would dictate his followers' personal lives as well as their political lives.”
To say or recite something aloud
“He used to dictate his thoughts to his amanuenses, or scribes, who attended him during his walks.”
To overpower by weight
To instruct or order (someone) to do something
To bring about (something) by the use of force or pressure
To assert something as a position in an argument
To write, especially a literary or artistic work
A set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure
“Now, that one ought to do something as it would be prudent is a dictate of prudence.”
A traditional or accepted way of behaving, specific to a particular society, place, or time
Plural for an order or command that must be obeyed
“This dictate by the King was naturally very unpopular among the merchants, and only by the threat of deportation could they be persuaded to settle in the new town.”
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