mandate

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   make mandatory

   the new director of the school board mandated regular tests

2. 2
   verb

   assign under a mandate

   mandate a colony

3. 3
   noun

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

   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.

4. 4
   noun

   The order or authority to do something, as granted to a politician by the electorate.

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

5. 5
   noun

   A period during which a government is in power.

   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.

6. 6
   verb

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

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

7. 7
   verb

   To make mandatory.

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

8. 8
   verb

   To repeat, rehearse sermons or speeches aloud.

   After I have mandated my exercices.

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.