Wiktionary

ukase

See also: Ukase

English

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WOTD – 1 May 2011

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Russian ука́з (ukáz, “edict, decree”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ukase (plural ukases)

  1. An authoritative proclamation; an edict, especially decreed by a Russian czar or later ruler.
    • 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[1], →ISSN:
      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.
  2. (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

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See also

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Further reading

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Anagrams

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French

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Russian ука́з (ukáz, “edict, decree”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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ukase m (plural ukases)

  1. (historical) ukase (a decree from a Russian ruler, or any absolute or arrogant order)
  2. edict, dictate

Descendants

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  • → Dutch: oekaze

See also

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Further reading

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Italian

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Alternative forms

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Noun

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ukase m (invariable)

  1. ukase

Portuguese

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Alternative forms

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Noun

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ukase m (plural ukases)

  1. ukase (proclamation by a Russian ruler)
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