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Dictate vs Impose - What's the difference?

dictate | impose | Related terms |

As verbs the difference between dictate and impose

is that dictate is to order, command, control while impose is to establish or apply by authority.

As a noun dictate

is an order or command.

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

    impose

    English

    Verb

    (impos)
  • To establish or apply by authority.
  • * Milton
  • Death is the penalty imposed .
    Congress imposed new tariffs.
  • * 2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, "[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/nyregion/new-jersey-continues-to-cope-with-hurricane-sandy.html?hp]," New York Times (retrieved 31 October 2012):
  • Localities across New Jersey imposed curfews to prevent looting. In Monmouth, Ocean and other counties, people waited for hours for gasoline at the few stations that had electricity. Supermarket shelves were stripped bare.
  • to be an inconvenience
  • I don't wish to impose upon you.
  • to enforce: compel to behave in a certain way
  • Social relations impose courtesy
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=December 10 , author=Arindam Rej , title=Norwich 4 - 2 Newcastle , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Norwich soon began imposing themselves on that patched-up defence with Holt having their best early chance, only to see it blocked by Simpson.}}
  • To practice a trick or deception.
  • To lay on, as the hands, in the religious rites of confirmation and ordination.
  • To arrange in proper order on a table of stone or metal and lock up in a chase for printing; said of columns or pages of type, forms, etc.
  • Derived terms

    * imposition * superimpose * imposure