Dictate

How to spell dictate

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce dictate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does dictate mean?

1. verbTo say words aloud for someone else to write down, or to lay down rules and conditions with authority.
2. nounAn authoritative order, ruling, or guiding principle that must be obeyed.

Dictate in a sentence

• verb

  She prefers to dictate her replies while her assistant types them.

• noun

  The staff refused to follow the dictate of the new committee.

• verb

  The new regulations dictate how the grant money must be spent.

• noun

  Every dictate of fashion seems to reverse within a few seasons.

Where does dictate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb dictare, which meant 'to say repeatedly', 'to declare', or 'to prescribe'. Dictare was itself a frequentative form of dicere, meaning simply 'to say' or 'to speak', so the original sense was of saying something over and over, exactly as one does when speaking words aloud for another person to write down. English adopted it in the early 1600s, keeping both threads of meaning: the literal act of speaking text for transcription, and the figurative act of laying down orders that must be obeyed. The same dicere root runs through a large family of familiar words, including 'dictionary', 'predict', 'verdict', and 'contradict', all of which involve saying or telling. Remembering that dict means 'say' is also a handy guard for the spelling, since the silent-feeling middle keeps the 'c' before the 't'.

How the word is built

• dict- (from dicere: to say, speak)
• -ate (verb/noun suffix)