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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

dictum en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • dĭk′təm
  • (Southern-England) audio
  • /ˈdɪk.təm/ (UK, US)

Etymology

From Latin dictum (“proverb, maxim”), from dictus (“having been said”), perfect passive participle of dico (“to say”). Compare Spanish dicho (“saying”). Doublet of dict.

Meanings

  1. An authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying; a maxim, an apothegm.
    • […]a dictum which he had heard an economics professor once propound[…] 1949, Bruce Kiskaddon, George R. Stewart, Earth Abides:
    • This should not surprise us who know that van Gogh wrote: 'To paint and to love women is incompatible'; van Gogh was right for himself, which does not mean that he was right for everybody, and I will not draw from his dictum the probably incorrect conclusion that 'To paint and to love literature is incompatible.' 1918, Walter Lionel George, A Novelist on Novels:
    • But this is not the philosophical revolution of which I speak. What Warhol's dictum amounted to was that you cannot tell when something is a work of art just by looking at it, for there is no particular way that art has to look. 1992, Arthur Coleman Danto, Beyond the Brillo Box, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 5:
    • 1. The utmost in steam producing capacity permitted by weight and dimensions; in other words, capacity to boil water—H. A. Ivatt's old dictum. 1951 July, “British Standard Locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 438:
  2. A judicial opinion expressed by judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case, and are not involved in it.
  3. The report of a judgment made by one of the judges who has given it.
  4. An arbitrament or award.

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
dictums Number=Plur lexicographic
dicta Number=Plur lexicographic

Deriveds

obiter dictum · Judd's dictum · Aristotle's dictum

Relateds

quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur · ipse dixit

Translations (10)

bg изрече́ние (authoritative statement) · pl dictum (authoritative statement) · bg сенте́нция (authoritative statement) · pt ditado (authoritative statement) · ru изрече́ние (authoritative statement) · ru сенте́нция (authoritative statement) · fi lausunto (authoritative statement) · eo verdikto (judicial opinion) · de Machtspruch (authoritative statement) · de Diktum (authoritative statement)