mandate

Definition

An official or authoritative command; an order or injunction; a commission; a judicial precept; an authorization.

Etymology

First attested in 1521; borrowed from Latin mandātum (“a charge, order, command, commission, injunction”), substantivized from the neuter forms of mandātus, perfect passive participle of mandō (“to commit to one's charge, order, command, commission, literally to put into one's hands”) (see -ate (noun-forming suffix)), from manus (“hand”) + -dere (“to put”). Sense 3 in Canadian English is likely a semantic loan from French mandat.

Example Sentences

• "Enactive. Expositive. / Art. 57. XIII 2. The Registrative, or say Recordative: exercised, by the arrangements and operations, by which, in conformity to corresponding ordinances and mandates, the accounts, given at different periods by the exercise of the statistic function, are kept in contiguity, and in a regular series, for the purpose of reference and comparison."
• "Instead, May, more sheep than shepherd, has feebly allowed herself to be driven ever further towards an extreme, inflexible, take-it-or-leave-it stance for which she has neither mandate nor credible grounds."
• "John Tyler and James K. Polk both regarded the election results as a mandate for the annexation of Texas."

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