Adjacent Words

Mandatory definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

MAN'DATORY, n. [L. mando, to command.]
1. A person to whom the pope has by his prerogative given a mandate or order for his benefice.
2. One to whom a command or charge is given.
3. In law, one who undertakes, without a recompense, to do some act for another in respect to the thing bailed to him.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: required by rule; "in most schools physical education is compulsory"; "attendance is mandatory"; "required reading" [syn: compulsory, mandatory, required] n
1: the recipient of a mandate [syn: mandatary, mandatory]
2: a territory surrendered by Turkey or Germany after World War I and put under the tutelage of some other European power until they are able to stand by themselves [syn: mandate, mandatory]

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Date: 15th century 1. containing or constituting a command ; obligatory <the mandatory retirement age> 2. of, by, relating to, or holding a League of Nations mandate • mandatorily adverb II. noun (plural -ries) Date: 1661 one given a mandate; especially a nation holding a mandate from the League of Nations

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & n. --adj. 1 of or conveying a command. 2 compulsory. --n. (pl. -ies) = MANDATARY. Derivatives: mandatorily adv. Etymology: LL mandatorius f. L (as MANDATE)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Mandatory Man"da*to*ry, a. [L. mandatorius.] Containing a command; preceptive; directory.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Mandatory Man"da*to*ry, n. Same as Mandatary.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If an action or procedure is mandatory, people have to do it, because it is a rule or a law. (FORMAL) ...the mandatory retirement age of 65... Attendance is mandatory. = compulsory ADJ 2. If a crime carries a mandatory punishment, that punishment is fixed by law for all cases, in contrast to crimes for which the judge or magistrate has to decide the punishment for each particular case. (FORMAL) ...the mandatory life sentence for murder. ? discretionary ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Preceptive, directory.

Moby Thesaurus

absolute, authoritative, binding, canonical, choiceless, commanded, commanding, compelling, compulsatory, compulsory, conclusive, de rigueur, decisive, decretory, demanded, dictated, didactic, entailed, essential, exigent, final, forced, formulary, hard and fast, hard-and-fast, imperative, imperious, importunate, imposed, indispensable, inevitable, instructive, involuntary, irrevocable, mandated, must, necessary, necessitous, needed, needful, obligatory, official, peremptory, preceptive, prescribed, prescript, prescriptive, regulation, required, requisite, rubric, standard, statutory, ultimate, urgent, without appeal, without choice