dictatory

comparative more dictatory · superlative most dictatory · alternative archaic dictatorie

1. Exessively strict.

   [B]ut rather, as I hope, for that our Engliſh, the language of men ever famous, and formoſt in the atchievements of liberty, will not eaſily finde ſervile letters anow to ſpell ſuch a dictatorie preſumption Engliſh.

   1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 8

   3 more examples

   There is philosophercraft as well as priestcraft, both from one source, both of one spirit. In English cities and towns, the minister of religion has been tamed: so many weapons are bared against him when he obtrudes his office in a dictatory manner, that, as a rule, there is no more quiet and modest member of society than the urban clergyman.

   1863, Augustus De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes

   I have noticed many slight but most significant tokens of the fact, that, when in some occasionally critical emergencies it was quite important for the English to conciliate or draw into action with them any one conspicuous individual, party, or tribe of the Indians, the work was set about in a blundering, dictatory, or harsh way, which would seem likely to defeat the object aimed for.

   1882, George E. Ellis, The Red Man and the White Man in North America, Chapter 5

   For every single one of our forty-four sovereign States, and about all of the Territories, have copious and dictatory statutes concerning railways, and these statutes are in every case to be added to—not held appealable to or reconcilable with, but collaterally additional to—the Act of Interstate Commerce!

   1892 June 28, Appleton Morgan, “Wanted: A Railway Court of Last Resort”, in Popular Science Monthly

   Synonyms: dogmatical, overbearing, dictatorial

plural dictatories

1. nonstandardobsoleteSynonym of dictate.

   Synonyms: dictate

2. nonstandardobsoleteSynonym of dictatorship.

   For quotations using this term, see Citations:dictatories.

   Synonyms: dictatorship