MEANING
1. To tell someone exactly what must be done, or an authoritative rule or command.
2. To determine an outcome or make a particular course of action necessary.
3. To say words aloud so a person or device can write or record them.
Use it for
describing an imposed decision rather than a negotiated one; showing an authority setting terms; distinguishing a binding demand from adviceSeparates commanding, decisively constraining an outcome, and speaking for transcription; helps calibrate strong causal language. Writing functions: Argumentation, Causation / Relationships.
Words that belong together
- dictate terms
- dictate to someone
- the dictates of authority
On the page
The committee could recommend changes, but it could not dictate the outcome.
She rejected the dictates of a patron who had never read the work.
The available records dictate the limits of the comparison, not the interpretation within those limits.
Cost alone did not dictate the decision; the interviews identify several competing concerns.
She dictated the letter twice, changing only the final sentence.
Word forms
- Base
- dictate
- Past tense
- dictated
- Past participle
- dictated
- Present participle
- dictating
Full tense & aspect guide
- Present
- dictate
- Present continuous
- am/is/are dictating
- Present perfect
- have/has dictated
- Present perfect continuous
- have/has been dictating
- Past
- dictated
- Past continuous
- was/were dictating
- Past perfect
- had dictated
- Past perfect continuous
- had been dictating
- Future
- will dictate
- Future continuous
- will be dictating
- Future perfect
- will have dictated
- Future perfect continuous
- will have been dictating
Choose the auxiliary that agrees with your subject. These are constructions of one word, not separate entries.
Usage notes
Verb and noun. Dictates, dictated, dictated, dictating; future will dictate. Dictate to someone, dictate that, dictate terms. Noun commonly plural dictates. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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