ukase

See also: Ukase

English

WOTD – 1 May 2011

Alternative forms

• ukaz, Ukaz
• Ukase

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /juːˈkeɪz/, IPA^(key): /ˈjuːkeɪs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪz

Noun

ukase (plural ukases)

1. An authoritative proclamation; an edict, especially decreed by a Russian czar or later ruler.
   • c. 1844, Henry Brougham, Political Philosophy:

     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 […]

   • 1805 May 6, The Times, page 3, column C:

     An Ukase, it appears, has been issued by the Emperor Alexander, to facilitate the introduction of calimancoes and other Norwich goods into his Empire.

   • 1984 August 5, William Safire, “Goodbye Sex, Hello Gender”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     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.”

   • 1988, James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford, published 2004, page 704:

     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.

2. (figuratively) Any absolutist order or arrogant proclamation

   Synonym: diktat

   • 1965, John Fowles, The Magus:

     I knew a stunned plunge of disappointment and a bitter anger. What right had he to issue such an arbitrary ukase?

   • 2008 July, Stephen Burt, “Kick Over the Scenery”, in London Review of Books:

     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.

Translations

proclamation from the Russian ruler

• Catalan: ucàs (ca) m
• Dutch: oekaze (nl)
• Esperanto: ukazo (eo)
• Finnish: ukaasi (fi)
• French: oukase (fr), ukase (fr)
• German: Ukas (de) m
• Hungarian: ukáz (hu)
• Italian: ukase m
• Polish: ukaz (pl) m
• Portuguese: ukase m, ucase (pt) m
• Russian: ука́з (ru) m (ukáz)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: указ m

  Roman: ukáz (sh) m

any absolutist or arrogant order

• Catalan: ucàs (ca) m
• Dutch: oekaze (nl)
• Finnish: ukaasi (fi)
• French: oukase (fr), ukase (fr)
• German: Ukas (de) m
• Hungarian: ukáz (hu)
• Italian: ukase m
• Slovene: dekret m

See also

• decree
• edict

Further reading

• ukase on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Ukaz in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Anagrams

• Akesu

French

Alternative forms

• oukase, oukaze, ukaze

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /y.kaz/, /u.kaz/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

Noun

ukase m (plural ukases)

1. (historical) ukase (a decree from a Russian ruler, or any absolute or arrogant order)
2. edict, dictate

Descendants

• → Dutch: oekaze

See also

• décret m
• édit m
• loi
• ordonnance

Further reading

• “ukase”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Italian

Alternative forms

• ucase

Noun

ukase m (invariable)

1. ukase

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• ucase

Noun

ukase m (plural ukases)

1. ukase (proclamation by a Russian ruler)