commanding

comparative more commanding · superlative most commanding

1. Tending to give commands, authoritarian.

   1 more example

   Nothing was too small to receive attention, if a supervising eye could suggest improvements likely to conduce to the common welfare. Mr. Gordon Burnage, for instance, personally visited dust-bins and back premises, accompanied by a sort of village bailiff, going his round like a commanding officer doing billets.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIX, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

2. Impressively dominant; very good and impressive.

   a commanding structure

   3 more examples

   a man with a commanding presence

   Her colleagues say that [Dalia] Stasevska is eager to challenge the status quo both in the artistic realm and in life. Claire Chase, a prominent flutist and educator, described her as a “supernova,” praising her collaborative and commanding style.

   2023 January 18, Javier C. Hernández, “A Conductor on a Mission to Help Ukraine”, in The New York Times

   Pierre Boulez, one of the most commanding musicians of the past century, must have been asked countless times, before his death in 2016, what he thought his legacy might be.

   2023 March 23, David Allen, “‘It Needs You’: The Human Side to Boulez’s Demanding Music”, in The New York Times

3. Dominating from above, giving a wide view (of a place or position)

   2018, Rail, issue 857, July 18-July 31, article on Severn Bridge Junction signal box at Shrewsbury On the top floor is the lever frame where signalmen are afforded an uninterrupted and commanding view of the junction below, and of Shrewsbury station's five working platforms.

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of command

   Synonyms: bossy, imposing

plural commandings

1. The act of giving a command.

   God could then have dispelled their ignorance by revealing to them that He had issued those commands; the fact of the occurrence of the earlier commandings would be the content of the revelation.

   2006, William E. Mann, Augustine's Confessions, page 172