mandate

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”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmændeɪt/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (Southern England):

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mandate (plural mandates)

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

   Synonyms: compulsion, obligation

   • 1830, Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional code: for the use all nations and all governments ..., volume 1, page 251:

     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.

   • 2017 March 27, “The Observer view on triggering article 50”, in The Observer‎^[1]:

     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.

2. (politics) The order or authority to do something, as granted to a politician by the electorate.
   • 2002, Leroy G. Dorsey, The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership, Texas A&M University Press, →ISBN, page 30:

     John Tyler and James K. Polk both regarded the election results as a mandate for the annexation of Texas.

3. (Canada) A period during which a government is in power.
   • 2000 October 6, John Richards, “Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1919-2000”, in The Globe and Mail‎^[2], archived from the original on 9 October 2019:

     Throughout his last mandate, from 1980 to 1984, Mr. Trudeau insisted that we see ourselves solely as Canadians, that we set aside the historic compromises that underlie Canada as a federation.

4. (historical) An order by the League of Nations to a member nation to establish a government responsible for a conquered territory, as the colonies of Germany after World War I.
   1. (historical) Such a territory.

First attested in 1623; partly directly borrowed from Latin mandātus (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and Etymology 1 for more), partly from the above noun by metanalysis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmændeɪt/, /mænˈdeɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪt

mandate (third-person singular simple present mandates, present participle mandating, simple past and past participle mandated)

1. To (officially) require someone to do something or act in a certain way, to give them the authority to do so; to command.
   • 1958, The Spectator:

     A delegate conference was called, and garages invited to mandate their representatives to vote for or against continuance.

   • 1987, British Medical Journal:

     Last June Illinois passed a bill requiring the state to trace sexual partners, […] but mandating the department to preserve the confidentiality of reports.

2. To make mandatory.
   • 2009 March 7, Walecia Konrad, “Hanging On to Health Coverage, if the Job Goes Away”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     Federal law mandates that at least one nongroup insurer in your state must provide coverage to everyone, regardless of health issues.

   • 2021 August 15, Stephanie Elizalde, “Why I'm Mandating That Austin Schools Must Be Masked When Classes Start”, in Time‎^[4]:

     As the Superintendent of Austin, TX, schools I have mandated that our kids must be masked when they start school on Tuesday.

   • 2024 June 13, Clare Foran and Ted Barrett, “Senate GOP blocks bill to guarantee access to IVF nationwide”, in CNN‎^[5]:

     The bill seeks to make IVF treatment more affordable by mandating coverage for fertility treatments under employer-sponsored insurance and certain public insurance plans.

3. To administer or assign a territory to a nation under a mandate. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
4. (Scotland, especially Christianity) To repeat, rehearse sermons or speeches aloud.
   • 1724, Robert Wodrow, Life of James Wodrow:

     After I have mandated my exercices.

   • 1796, Charles Simeon, The Gospel Message:

     He [sc. Archbishop Secker] then proceeds to express his disapprobation of what is called Mandating of Sermons, or repeating them from memory. This custom prevails much among foreign Divines, and throughout the whole Church of Scotland.

   • 1893, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, Stickitt Minister:

     He rose and walked his study, ‘mandating’ his opening sentences with appropriate gestures.

   • 1951, Robert James Drummond, Lest We Forget:

     I had only from that evening at six till Sabbath to mandate my two discourses.

From man +‎ date.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmæn.deɪt/

mandate (plural mandates)

1. (uncommon) Alternative form of man date: a date between two men.
   • 2007 September 7, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 2, Episode 3:

     Moss: Oh, he's long gone, although Roy's got a mandate with him.
     Roy: It is not a mandate. I am not a man-woman. We are not married. I am not your wife!

• “mandate”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “mandate”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “mandate”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Homophones: mandatent, mandates

mandate

1. inflection of mandater:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative
   2. first-person singular present subjunctive
   3. second-person singular imperative

mandate f

1. plural of mandata

mandate

1. inflection of mandare:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative
   3. feminine plural past participle

• Damante, damante

mandāte

1. vocative masculine singular of mandātus

mandate

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of mandar combined with te
2. inflection of mandatar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative