ukase
See also: Ukase
English
WOTD – 1 May 2011
Alternative forms
- ukaz, Ukaz
- Ukase
Etymology
Borrowed from Russian ука́з (ukáz, “edict, decree”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /juːˈkeɪz/
Audio (UK) (file)
- Rhymes: -eɪz
Noun
ukase (plural ukases)
- An authoritative proclamation; an edict, especially decreed by a Russian czar or (later) emperor.
- c. 1844, Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy:
- Many estates peopled with crown peasants have been, according to an ukase of Peter the Great, ceded to particular individuals on condition of establishing manufactories […]
- 1805 May 6, The Times, page 3, column C:
- An Ukase, it appears, has been issued by the Emperor Alexander, to facilitate the introduction of calimancoes and other Norwich goods into his Empire.
- 1984 August 5, William Safire, “Goodbye Sex, Hello Gender”, in The New York Times, ISSN 0362-4331:
- Two years ago, the word went forth to friend and foe alike that gender applied to grammar while sex applied to people. I issued the ukase: “If you have a friend of the female sex, you are a red-blooded American boy; if you have a friend of the feminine gender, you have an unnatural attachment to a word.”
- 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2004, page 704:
- The planters, he explained in a letter to Lincoln, would accept emancipation by ukase in preference to being compelled to enact it themselves in a new constitution.
-
- (figuratively) Any absolutist order or arrogant proclamation
- Synonym: diktat
- 1965, John Fowles, The Magus:
- I knew a stunned plunge of disappointment and a bitter anger. What right had he to issue such an arbitrary ukase?
- 2008 July, Stephen Burt, “Kick Over the Scenery”, in London Review of Books:
- It is a short step from discovering that the world we know is a fake or a cheat to discovering that human beings are themselves factitious: that we are robots, ‘simulacra’ (the title of one of Dick’s novels), ‘just reflex machines’, ‘repeating doomed patterns, a single pattern, over and over’ in accordance with biological or economic ukases.
Translations
proclamation from the Russian ruler
|
any absolutist or arrogant order
|
See also
- decree
- edict
Further reading
- ukase on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- Ukaz in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)
Anagrams
- Akesu
French
Alternative forms
- oukase
Etymology
Borrowed from Russian ука́з (ukáz, “edict, decree”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /y.kaz/, /u.kaz/
Audio (Paris) (file)
Noun
ukase m (plural ukases)
- (historical) ukase (a decree from a Russian ruler, or any absolute or arrogant order)
- edict, dictate
Descendants
- → Dutch: oekaze
See also
- décret m
- édit m
- loi
- ordonnance
Further reading
- “ukase”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Italian
Alternative forms
- ucase
Noun
ukase m (invariable)
- ukase
Portuguese
Alternative forms
- ucase
Noun
ukase m (plural ukases)
- ukase (proclamation by a Russian ruler)