to dictate
181
5.0
- verb
- /ˈdɪkˌteɪt/
:
imponer
- Why are you letting your in laws dictate how you raise your kids?
- dictate policy
- prudence dictates
- dictate the course
It's just the facts dictate how the movie plays out.
- It's just the facts dictate how the movie plays out.
- Walter Cronkite dictated what people thought at scale.
- How we think, how we speak often dictates how we feel.
- It can actually dictate what you can spend it on.
- You know, doctors can't dictate the way it's going to be.
- I think that they then take over and dictate what's required in the moment.
- He is trying to dictate your actions and moves.
- That's our stabilizer and that really dictates how well we use our glutes.
- If I hear anybody going to a country and dictating terms, I'll fire you.
- It wants to dictate what its neighbors can and can't do.
- I never allowed my level of effort be dictated by the situation.
- And so your community is going to dictate so much about your growth.
- It comes because I'm incapable of letting business dictate my emotional behavior.
Examples
-
Never let a man dictate who you are or what you can do.
-
They let outside events dictate how they feel.
-
The leaders have created a beautiful system and they dictate the values now, we just have to accept that.
-
Stop letting people dictate to you what the situation is.
-
The cost of land and availability of water can dictate the development of new facilities.
Academic text (2013) -
The King intended to win and then dictate terms to a defeated Parliament.
-
If you don't let anybody else dictate your happiness, you will win.
-
Forgiveness is not condoning the actions of others, but in not allowing our past to dictate our present.
-
The rules of the game, formerly dictated by the EU and Washington, have changed.
Academic text (2015) -
The manager decided to dictate the team's goals for the upcoming quarter.
Synonyms
902
1.3
To tell someone to do something in an official way
607
1.0
To be the leader of a country or group and control it
307
2.7
To give orders and control people or things
258
4.8
Force someone to do something or make them feel they must
188
2.8
To tell someone to do something, often as an order
169
4.9
To officially require someone to do something
72
4.5
To make someone do something because the law or rules say so
64
3.2
To strongly influence how someone behaves or what happens
57
4.2
State an official rule about what people must do
48
3.1
To tell other people what to do in a rude way
37
4.5
Tell people what to do in a rude way when you have no right
37
5.3
To order something officially by a government or official
23
4.2
To be in charge of people or a place
13
8.6
To officially order someone to do or not do something, often by a court
12
5.5
Tell people firmly what they must do
8
7.5
To treat other people as if you are better than them
3
7.0
To have control and make the main decisions
To give a strict official order that people must follow
Antonyms
How Controlling
Surface Forms
Morphology
dictate = dict + ate
Although this sense ('give orders') is semantically related to other senses, the morphological pieces are Latin-derived and not productive standalone English morphemes, so learners cannot reliably predict the meaning from components.
Etymology
Dictate comes from the Latin root dict- 'to say' and is related to dictator, a word for someone who gives orders. So, to dictate in this sense is to give orders and control what others do.