Definition of ukase in English:

noun

• 1(in tsarist Russia) a decree with the force of law.

  ‘Tsar Alexander I issued his famous ukase unilaterally decreeing the North Pacific Coast Russian territory’

  More example sentences

  • ‘In the late 1960s comprehensive education had been imposed on local authorities by Labour with all the ruthlessness of a ukase.’
  • ‘In Ukraine, all performances and translations of Shakespeare into Ukrainian were banned by strict ukases, thus turning Shakespeare into samizdat literature well before the Soviet period.’

  Synonyms

  decree, order, command, commandment, mandate, proclamation, pronouncement, dictum, dictate, fiat, promulgation, precept

  1. 1.1An arbitrary or peremptory command.
     ‘he was defying the publisher in the very building from which he had issued his ukase’
     More example sentences

     • ‘Why not ease up on the ukases against kids singing songs about mangers and stars?’
     • ‘The Bush doctrine seeks to extend American ukase all around the world, whereas we ought to be seeking ways for attenuating all national sovereignties in favor of collective global decision-making.’
     • ‘The brusque style of Washington has managed to antagonize its best friends by means of anachronistic ukases and its treatment of allies as unruly children.’
     • ‘Railtrack was nationalised by ministerial ukase, at a point when the market recognised its crisis had peaked and could be overcome.’
     • ‘As in the United States, the Australian History Wars are conducted by ukase.’
     • ‘I can only think that, trapped between his automatic deference to prescriptive ukases and a cloudy realization that if everybody is using words in an illogical way usage must trump logic, he squares the circle by means of this oxymoron.’
     • ‘But the dimwitted ukases that his book with Strunk promulgates have nothing to do with good writing or elegant style.’
     • ‘I remember my daughter's 2nd grade teacher saying that she only had spelling books because she rescued them from the dumpster after the ukase came down that they weren't supposed to use them anymore.’
     Synonyms

     order, command, decree, edict, rule, ruling, ordinance, dictum, directive, direction, instruction, pronouncement, mandate, requirement, stipulation, injunction, ultimatum, demand, exhortation