mandatory.

Required by an applicable rule, law or authority rather than left to choice.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• mandatory requirement
• mandatory disclosure

On the page

Mandatory disclosure applied only to the information specified in the rule.

The course was mandatory for the stated role but not for every employee.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Normally non-gradable for a specified formal status; compare degree only where the context genuinely concerns a gradable capacity or characteristic. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: status distinction, institutional analysis, scope qualification, rights analysis. Disciplines: formal writing, institutional procedures, legal-administrative language. Commonness: moderately common.