mandate

American  

[man-deyt] / ˈmæn deɪt /

noun

• mandates
  plural

1. a command or authorization to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate to its representative.

   The president had a clear mandate to end the war.

2. a command from a superior court or official to a lower one.

   The appellate court resolved the appeal and issued a mandate to the district judge.

3. an authoritative order or command.

   a royal mandate.

   Synonyms:

   ruling, edict, injunction, decree, fiat

4. (in the League of Nations) a commission given to a nation to administer the government and affairs of a former Turkish territory or German colony.

5. a mandated territory or colony.

6. Roman Catholic Church. an order issued by the pope, especially one commanding the preferment of a certain person to a benefice.

7. Roman and Civil Law. a contract by which one engages gratuitously to perform services for another.

8. (in modern civil law) any contract by which a person undertakes to perform services for another.

9. Roman Law. an order or decree by the emperor, especially to governors of provinces.

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verb (used with object)

• mandates,
  present (3rd person singular)
• mandated,
  past participle,  past
• mandating
  present participle

1. to authorize or decree (a particular action), as by the enactment of law.

   The state legislature mandated an increase in the minimum wage.

2. to order or require; make mandatory.

   to mandate sweeping changes in the election process.

3. to consign (a territory, colony, etc.) to the charge of a particular nation under a mandate.

mandate British  

noun

1. an official or authoritative instruction or command

2. politics the support or commission given to a government and its policies or an elected representative and his policies through an electoral victory

3. Also called: mandated territory.  (often capital) (formerly) any of the territories under the trusteeship of the League of Nations administered by one of its member states

4. 1. Roman law a contract by which one person commissions another to act for him gratuitously and the other accepts the commission

   2. contract law a contract of bailment under which the party entrusted with goods undertakes to perform gratuitously some service in respect of such goods

   3. Scots law a contract by which a person is engaged to act in the management of the affairs of another

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verb

1. international law to assign (territory) to a nation under a mandate

2. to delegate authority to

3. obsolete to give a command to

mandate Cultural  

1. A command or an expression of a desire, especially by a group of voters for a political program. Politicians elected in landslide victories often claim that their policies have received a mandate from the voters.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• mandator
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• mandates
  plural

Participles

• mandating
  present
• mandated
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• mandate
  simple
• mandates
  simple
• have mandated
  perfect
• has mandated
  perfect
• am mandating
  progressive
• are mandating
  progressive
• is mandating
  progressive
• have been mandating
  perfect progressive
• has been mandating
  perfect progressive

Past

• mandated
  simple
• had mandated
  perfect
• was mandating
  progressive
• were mandating
  progressive
• had been mandating
  perfect progressive

Future

• will mandate
  simple
• will have mandated
  perfect
• will be mandating
  progressive
• will have been mandating
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of mandate

First recorded in 1540–50; from Latin mandātum, noun use of neuter of mandātus, past participle of mandāre “to commission,” literally, “to give into (someone's) hand”; equivalent to manus manus + -dere “to put” (combining form; see do ¹).

Explanation

A mandate is an official command or a go-ahead. When a politician wins an election by a wide margin, that's a mandate to implement her ideas. A mandate gives authority. If the government gives schools a mandate to test more, then the schools had better give more tests. People who work for the Peace Corps have a mandate to help various countries with things like getting clean drinking water. A politician who believes in higher taxes and then gets elected considers that a mandate to raise taxes. When you have a mandate, it's like a ticket to get something done.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mandate mandates mandated mandating

Several women with busy careers spoke to the BBC about the challenges of juggling their work with motherhood in the only industrialised nation that does not mandate paid parental leave.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

These characters know that the mandate is awful, but they’ve found screwed-up ways to live with it.

From Salon ● Aug. 15, 2026

"With the dangerous injunction poised to take effect for the first time on August 21, its stop-work mandate is even more flagrantly inequitable, if not impossible," he wrote.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

The bill does not mandate the Angels — playing under a Los Angeles name in Anaheim’s city-owned stadium — revert to the Anaheim Angels name.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

For the West Computers, it was by mandate.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

No country mandates that employers offer paid time off after the death of a pet.

From BBC ● Aug. 15, 2026

Return-to-office mandates also have hiring managers more focused on candidates’ personalities.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 13, 2026

Standard procedure mandates that anyone suspected of smoke inhalation receives a bronchoscopic examination of their airways.

From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026

One of those state laws, written by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and co-wrote by Wiener, mandates expedited approval for mixed-income projects along commercial corridors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

Referring to them as sacred might feel uncomfortable, because the First Amendment of the Constitution tells us that this nation legally mandates separation of church and state.

From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Millions of people write these exams every year across states and nationally, often attending coaching classes, until they reach the mandated age limit.

From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026

The government also got the right to appoint one independent director and mandated that a majority of the board would be U.S. citizens.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2026

He thinks Doximity is in a strong position “as AI clinical evidence usage evolves from a bottoms-up, personal, physician-by-physician usage to a top-down, health system mandated tool usage strategy.”

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 7, 2026

It said it tightened its seller vetting process, introduced a policy to reimburse buyers who win high-value items that sellers fail to deliver and mandated that all repack boxes be manufacturer-sealed and verified before sale.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

He had disrupted commencement ceremonies by deliberately wearing a gold cap and gown, and the principal had threatened to bar him unless he changed into the mandated blue ones.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz

One point of mandating U.S. stock-market exposure with the funds is to give future generations buy-ins on America’s economy.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026

Just last week, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders fast-tracking quantum systems, mandating a research-ready quantum computer by 2028 and a government-wide migration to post-quantum cryptography by 2031.

From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026

In April, a federal appeals court upheld the law mandating the display after a legal challenge.

From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026

It explicitly prohibits interpreting the executive order as mandating licensing or preclearance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026

That research, and other investigations like it, led to changes in air traffic regulations, mandating minimum distances between flight paths so as to prevent that kind of wake turbulence accident.

From "Hidden Figures" by Margot Lee Shetterly

Related Words

• authorization
• command
• decree
• directive
• injunction
• instruction
• sanction