mandate

²man·date

verb \ˈman-ˌdāt\

man·dat·edman·dat·ing

Definition of MANDATE

transitive verb

1

: to administer or assign (as a territory) under a mandate (see ¹mandate)

2

: to officially require (something) : make (something) mandatory : order <a law mandating recycling>; also : to direct or require (someone) to do something <a commission mandated to investigate corruption>

Examples of MANDATE

1. The law mandates that every car have seat belts.
2. He won the election so convincingly that he believed the people had mandated him to carry out his policies.
3. The carbon prices on the European exchanges are higher precisely because the allowances for carbon emissions are mandated by government. —Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, 2006
4. But the FDA did nothing. Later, it protested that it doesn't have the authority to mandate additional studies once a drug is marketed, but that is sophistry. The FDA has the authority to pull drugs off the market … —Marcia Angell, New York Review of Books, 8 June 2006
5. For a few tantalizing weeks this spring, the manufacturers of gun safety locks seemed to have hit the jackpot: the gun-control bill passed by the Senate in the wake of the Littleton shootings mandated that all new handguns be equipped with safety locks. —Calvin Trillin, Time, 5 July 1999

Origin of MANDATE

(see ¹mandate)

First Known Use: 1919

Related to MANDATE

Synonyms: call, decree, dictate, direct, command, ordain, order

Related Words: ask, petition, request; demand, require

Near Antonyms: cancel, countermand, rescind

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Other Government and Politics Terms

agent provocateur, agitprop, autarky, cabal, egalitarianism, federalism, hegemony, plenipotentiary, popular sovereignty, socialism