What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Dictate vs Direction - What's the difference?

dictate | direction | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between dictate and direction

is that dictate is an order or command while direction is the action of directing; pointing (something) or looking towards.

As a verb dictate

is to order, command, control.

dictate

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • An order or command.
  • I must obey the dictates of my conscience.

    Verb

    (dictat)
  • To order, command, control.
  • * 2001 , Sydney I. Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography , Cambridge University Press (ISBN 0-521-78512-X), page 409,
  • Trademark Owners will nevertheless try to dictate how their marks are to be represented, but dictionary publishers with spine can resist such pressure.
  • To speak in order for someone to write down the words.
  • She is dictating a letter to a stenographer.
    The French teacher dictated a passage from Victor Hugo.

    Derived terms

    * dictation * dictator

    direction

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The action of directing; pointing (something) or looking towards.
  • * 1835 , Sir , Sir (James Clark Ross), Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-west Passage …, Volume 1 , pp.284-5
  • Towards the following morning, the thermometer fell to 5°; and at daylight, there was not an atom of water to be seen in any direction .
  • Guidance, instruction.
  • The work of the director in cinema or theater; the skill of directing a film, play etc.
  • (archaic) An address.
  • * 1796 , , (The Monk) , Folio Society 1985, p. 218:
  • Her aunt Leonella was still at Cordova, and she knew not her direction .
  • The path or course of a given movement, or moving body; an indication of the point toward or from which an object is moving.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=4 , passage=Judge Short had gone to town, and Farrar was off for a three days' cruise up the lake. I was bitterly regretting I had not gone with him when the distant notes of a coach horn reached my ear, and I descried a four-in-hand winding its way up the inn road from the direction of Mohair.}}
  • * 1900 , , (The House Behind the Cedars) , Chapter I,
  • Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point, a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house. When their paths converged, Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her, it having been already his intention to walk in this direction .

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * 1000 English basic words ----