promulgate

present singular third person promulgates · participle present promulgating · participle past promulgated · past promulgated

1. transitiveTo make known or make public.

   ’Tis yet to know, / Which when I know, that boaſting is an Honour, / I ſhall promulgate. I fetch by life and being, / From Men of Royall Seige.

   c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]

   1 more example

   Prieſts have invented, and the world admir’d / What knaviſh prieſts promulgate as inſpir’d ; / ’Till reaſon, now no longer overaw’d, / Reſumes her pow’rs, and ſpurns the clumſy fraud ; / And, common-ſenſe diffuſing real day, / The meteor of the goſpel dies away !

   1784 November 6, William Cowper, “Tirocinium: Or, A Review of Schools”, in Poems, page 303

   Synonyms: declare, proclaim, publish · Antonyms: withhold

2. transitiveTo put into effect as a regulation.

   […] the Statute of Uses was delayed until 1536 and the Statute of Wills until 1540, but both statutes were promulgated in 1532, and formed part of a policy which we may compare, not favourably, with the of Edward I[…]

   1881 June 7, William Stubbs, “The Reign of Henry VIII”, in Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History and Kindred Subjects, Oxford: Clarendon Press, published 1887, page 293

   Synonyms: carry out, execute, implement, put into effect · Antonyms: abrogate

3. nonstandardtransitiveTo advocate on behalf of (something or someone, especially of an idea); to spread knowledge of and make more widely known.

   Synonyms: propagate, promote, disseminate

4. obsoleteparticiplepastpast participle of promulgateFirst known use 1526–1838