Dictionary

ukase en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /juːˈkeɪz/
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈjuːkeɪs/

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. An authoritative proclamation; an edict, especially decreed by a Russian czar or later ruler.
   • 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. 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2004, page 704:
   • An Ukase, it appears, has been issued by the Emperor Alexander, to facilitate the introduction of calimancoes and other Norwich goods into his Empire. 1805 May 6, The Times, page 3, column C:
   • 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 […] c. 1844, Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy:
   • 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.” 1984 August 5, William Safire, “Goodbye Sex, Hello Gender”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
2. (figuratively) Any absolutist order or arrogant proclamation
   • I knew a stunned plunge of disappointment and a bitter anger. What right had he to issue such an arbitrary ukase? 1965, John Fowles, The Magus:
   • 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. 2008 July, Stephen Burt, “Kick Over the Scenery”, in London Review of Books:

Forms

Relateds

edict · decree

Synonyms

diktat

Translations (25)

sh указ (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · pl ukaz (any absolutist or arrogant order) · nl oekaze (any absolutist or arrogant order) · ca ucàs (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · it ukase (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · ru ука́з (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · sl dekret (any absolutist or arrogant order) · fi ukaasi (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · it ukase (any absolutist or arrogant order) · pt ukase (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · de Ukas (any absolutist or arrogant order) · fi ukaasi (any absolutist or arrogant order) · fr oukase (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · fr ukase (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · hu ukáz (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · hu ukáz (any absolutist or arrogant order) · sh ukáz (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · pt ucase (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · eo ukazo (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · nl oekaze (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · pl ukaz (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · de Ukas (proclamation from the Russian ruler) · fr ukase (any absolutist or arrogant order) · ca ucàs (any absolutist or arrogant order) · fr oukase (any absolutist or arrogant order)