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dictate
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dictate as in:  Hitler dictated that...

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  • By the time I was in high school, my parents seldom dictated to me, but they were very persuasive.
    dictated = issued commands or orders
  • He was used to dictating to grown men.   (source)
    dictating = issuing commands
  • And once we reach the city, my stylist will dictate my look for the opening ceremonies tonight anyway.   (source)
    dictate = control or command
  • Zia even wanted to dictate how we should pray, and set up salat, or prayer committees, in every district, even in our remote village, and appointed 100,000 prayer inspectors.   (source)
    dictate = command
  • We need a Julius Caesar, except that he made himself dictator, and died for it.   (source)
    dictator = someone who rules a country with total, individual, political power
  • Dumbledore's refusal to use Voldemort's chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such.   (source)
    dictate = command or control
  • I was subject to the dictates of my mind, which gave me the maneuverability of a strait jacket.   (source)
    dictates = commands
  • It's just that men like Father don't like to be dictated to.   (source)
    dictated = commanded
  • Eighty percent have decided to obey the dictates of their conscience, but the penalty will be severe.   (source)
    dictates = commands
  • I have always acted in accordance with the dictates of my conscience.   (source)
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show 49 more with this conextual meaning
  • But it is your happiness I desire as well as my own when I declare to you that our marriage would render me eternally miserable unless it were the dictate of your own free choice.   (source)
    dictate = command
  • But it was to Father the crowning touch in Mrs. Gandhi's dictatorial takeover of the nation.†   (source)
  • Tiny dictatorial lists.†   (source)
  • Mobutu soon became the caricature of a violent, dictatorial kleptocrat.†   (source)
  • When the banana company arrived, however, the local functionaries were replaced by dictatorial foreigners whom Mr. Brown brought to live in the electrified chicken yard so that they could enjoy, as he explained it, the dignity that their status warranted and so that they would not suffer from the heat and the mosquitoes and the countless discomforts and privations of the town.†   (source)
  • Jack ran his bus in dictatorial fashion.†   (source)
  • Although Kroc could be dictatorial, he also listened carefully to his franchisees' ideas and complaints.†   (source)
  • But the eat-sleep routine I had begun in the hospital, and kept up under Mother's dictatorial command, got the better of me.†   (source)
  • It was in 1986, not long after Baby Doc left Haiti, an event that marked the end of the Duvaliers' reign, which was being followed by what dissident Haitians called Duvalierism without Duvalier, with the Haitian army generally taking on the dictatorial role.†   (source)
  • 'They've got to swallow it,' Milo ordained with dictatorial grandeur, and almost broke his neck when he let go with one arm to wave a righteous finger in the air.†   (source)
  • It was a commonly used element in experiments with brainwashing conducted by various dictatorial regimes, and there was evidence that the political prisoners who confessed to all sorts of crimes during the Moscow trials in the 1930s had been subjected to such treatment.†   (source)
  • Crisp professionalism replaced dictatorial fury as the abiding mood of their universe.†   (source)
  • Whatever the case, the issuance of these orders is a contemptuous, vile, and unnerving example of the executive acting in a dictatorial fashion, and, in its appearance, clearly grounds for an extensive inquiry by the legislative branch.†   (source)
  • "I object," said Boyle, "to your dictatorial method of—" Kinnan turned his back on him and said, "Listen, Wesley, my boys won't like Point One.†   (source)
  • The people find excise taxes intrusive and dictatorial.†   (source)
  • I also, for the first time, felt a touch of warm rage churning in the region of my abdomen; it was a slow conglomerate anger, directed in equal parts at Nathan's hateful and dictatorial manner, his foul treatment of Sophie and (I could scarcely believe my own reflex now) his gruesome malediction against Bilbo.†   (source)
  • Commissars invested with dictatorial powers were appointed to each, men of iron will in black leather jackets, armed with means of intimidation and guns, who shaved rarely and slept even more rarely.†   (source)
  • He had intentionally broken the law and dictatorially thwarted the will of Congress!†   (source)
  • The one who advises you, lines up your sponsors, and dictates the presentation of any gifts.   (source)
    dictates = controls or commands
  • Our last dictator General Zia used to go there, and in the 1980s, under his regime, the Tablighis became very powerful.   (source)
    dictator = ruler
  • That summer, while he was walking in the mountains, our dictator General Zia was killed in a mysterious plane crash, which many people said was caused by a bomb hidden in a crate of mangoes.   (source)
  • What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me?   (source)
    dictate = issue commands
  • I will parody them—
      Blest Knight! whose dictatorial looks dispense
      To Children affluence, to Rushworth sense.   (source)
    dictatorial = commanding
  • The being left with her sister and nephew, and all the house under her care, had been an advantage entirely thrown away; she had been unable to direct or dictate, or even fancy herself useful.   (source)
    dictate = command
  • Do not suppose, however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you or that a delay on your part would cause me any serious uneasiness.   (source)
    dictate = issue commands regarding
  • As far as walking, talking, and contriving reached, she was thoroughly benevolent, and nobody knew better how to dictate liberality to others; but her love of money was equal to her love of directing, and she knew quite as well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends.   (source)
    dictate = instruct
  • Sir Thomas was satisfied; too glad to be satisfied, perhaps, to urge the matter quite so far as his judgment might have dictated to others.   (source)
    dictated = instructed
  • If she would but have let us know she was going out but there is a something about Fanny, I have often observed it before—she likes to go her own way to work; she does not like to be dictated to; she takes her own independent walk whenever she can; she certainly has a little spirit of secrecy, and independence, and nonsense, about her, which I would advise her to get the better of.   (source)
    dictated = commanded
  • They were free, as Colonel Cathcart was free, to force their men to fly sixty missions if they chose, and they were free, as Yossarian had been free, to stand in formation naked if they wanted to, although General Dreedle's granite jaw swung open at the sight and he went striding dictatorially right down the line to make certain that there really was a man wearing nothing but moccasins waiting at attention in ranks to receive a medal from him.†   (source)
  • The most ruthless and autocratic Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives thereupon submitted his resignation; but George Norris, who insisted his fight was to end the dictatorial power of the office rather than to punishthe individual, voted against its acceptance.†   (source)
  • We wish Mr. Wynand to realize that the day of dictatorial one-man rule is past.†   (source)
  • Dictatorial, too.†   (source)
  • Scratchy and dictatorial, he began to question her.†   (source)
  • Vida Sherwin's dictatorial voice cut through, took control of the revolution: "Tut, tut, tut, tut!†   (source)
  • I must confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever entertained.†   (source)
  • The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial.†   (source)
  • Mr. Mason was quite alive now, interrogative, dynamic, and a bit dictatorial in his manner, even to his old friend.†   (source)
  • Charles had been kind in undertaking the funeral arrangements and in telling him to eat his breakfast, but the boy as he grew up was a little dictatorial, and assumed the post of chairman too readily.†   (source)
  • The closeness of their connection with the church made them adopt a slightly dictatorial attitude to the rest of mankind.†   (source)
  • He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person.†   (source)
  • Besides, in Roberta's mind was the thought that under such definite espionage as must now follow, to say nothing of the unhappy and dictatorial attitude of Grace, she would have small chance to be with Clyde as much as she now most intensely desired.†   (source)
  • In fact, the Hospital had become an object of intense interest to Bulstrode, and he would willingly have continued to spare a large yearly sum that he might rule it dictatorially without any Board; but he had another favorite object which also required money for its accomplishment: he wished to buy some land in the neighborhood of Middlemarch, and therefore he wished to get considerable contributions towards maintaining the Hospital.†   (source)
  • "I believe her to be both in a great degree," replied Wickham; "I have not seen her for many years, but I very well remember that I never liked her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent.†   (source)
  • Lucien having left, Danglars took his place on the sofa, closed the open book, and placing himself in a dreadfully dictatorial attitude, he began playing with the dog; but the animal, not liking him as well as Debray, and attempting to bite him, Danglars seized him by the skin of his neck and threw him upon a couch on the other side of the room.†   (source)
  • For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one another; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately justifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance for a moment.†   (source)
  • He spoke in a subdued and troubled voice, very different from his usual dictatorial manner; and was often at a loss for words.†   (source)
  • No dictatorial sentiments, no judicial opinions, no profound criticisms.†   (source)
  • From this complacence, the critics have been emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded, that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received them.†   (source)
  • The dictator, a.k.a. my mom, bought my outfit.   (source)
    dictator = ruler
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dictate as in:  reason dictates

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • Public outrage dictates that the law be changed.
  • The heart dictates as well as feels.   (source)
    dictates = determines or controls what will happen
  • Courtesy dictates that we offer fellow wizards the opportunity of denying us entry.   (source)
    dictates = requires
  • Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, or however it is done, with mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, decapitation, or what, dispose of them as the situation dictates ….   (source)
    dictates = determines or controls
  • We SCIs know that very little is under our control—who feeds us, dresses us, washes us, dictates our medication.   (source)
  • Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm.   (source)
    dictates = instructions or commands
  • As long as he had strength in him, his duty dictated that he return to the other world and search for the princess.   (source)
    dictated = determined or required
  • In the Icefall, though, expediency dictated that each of us climb independently, without being physically connected to one another in any way.   (source)
    dictated = required
  • Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of alignment.   (source)
    dictates = determines or controls
  • Sometimes he pursued the call into the forest, looking for it as though it were a tangible thing, barking softly or defiantly, as the mood might dictate.   (source)
    dictate = determine
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show 6 more with this conextual meaning
  • These feelings dictated my answer to my father.   (source)
    dictated = determined or controlled
  • I cannot be dictated to by a watch.   (source)
    dictated = controlled
  • Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;   (source)
    dictate = require
  • Buddhist protocol dictates that travelers always pass mani walls on the left.   (source)
    dictates = requires
  • He couldn't bear it that in some way I had the power to dictate his future, that I had somehow become Mother again.   (source)
    dictate = determine or control what will happen
  • …and long-furred; but behind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savor of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank, scenting the wind with him, listening with him and telling him the sounds made by the wild life in the forest, dictating his moods, directing his actions, lying down to sleep with him when he lay down, and dreaming with him and beyond him and becoming themselves the stuff of his dreams.   (source)
    dictating = determining
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dictate as in:  dictate a letter

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • She dictated a text message to her phone.
    dictated = said out loud for the purpose of recording
  • Joe made notes as Ed dictated.   (source)
    dictated = said out loud (for another to write notes)
  • Finally, a letter arrived, composed by Harvey and dictated to a nurse from his hospital bed.   (source)
    dictated = said out loud and written by another
  • Atticus was speaking easily, with the kind of detachment he used when he dictated a letter.   (source)
    dictated = said out loud for the purpose of recording
  • He is on record now, and is really dictating to Cheever, who writes.   (source)
    dictating = talking so that someone else can write what is said
  • Then Mr. van Daan came in to do some dictating.   (source)
    dictating = talk aloud for the purpose of recording in writing
  • Peter dictated as follows:   (source)
    dictated = said out loud for the purpose of recording
  • Apart from very short notes, it was usual to dictate everything into the speak-write which was of course impossible for his present purpose.   (source)
    dictate = say out loud for the purpose of recording
  • Vera hesitated a minute, then she said: "You've admitted, you know, that you don't hold human life particularly sacred, but all the same I can't see you as-as the man who dictated that gramophone record."   (source)
    dictated = said out loud for the purpose of recording
  • ...caused him to make such fearful errors in his dictation that Mr. Phillips kept him in after school to rewrite it.   (source)
    dictation = writing what someone else says aloud
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show 7 more with this conextual meaning
  • She wrote at his dictation.   (source)
    dictation = saying out loud for the purpose of recording
  • …to weary myself with imagining some fit parentage for him; and, repeating my waking meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations; at last, picturing his death and funeral: of which, all I can remember is, being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and, as he had no surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, 'Heathcliff.'   (source)
  • She had a letter from him herself, a few hurried happy lines, written as the ship came up Channel, and sent into Portsmouth with the first boat that left the Antwerp at anchor in Spithead; and when Crawford walked up with the newspaper in his hand, which he had hoped would bring the first tidings, he found her trembling with joy over this letter, and listening with a glowing, grateful countenance to the kind invitation which her uncle was most collectedly dictating in reply.   (source)
    dictating = instructing what should be said
  • Winston thought for a moment, then pulled the speakwrite towards him and began dictating in Big Brother's familiar style: a style at once military and pedantic, and, because of a trick of asking questions and then promptly answering them...   (source)
    dictating = talking aloud for the purpose of recording
  • We had reading and geography and Canadian history and dictation today.   (source)
    dictation = writing what someone else says aloud
  • I'm dictating this under great emotional strain.   (source)
    dictating = talking aloud for the purpose of recording
  • I owe this progress report to Burt who had the bright idea that I could dictate this on a transistor tape recorder and have a public stenographer in Chicago type it up.   (source)
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • Dictator or not, she's not gonna make me dance.†   (source)
  • I like to believe I am a benevolent dictator, but you can make that judgment for yourselves.†   (source)
  • Custom would have dictated that she only pick at her food while in company: chewing and swallowing were such blatantly carnal activities.†   (source)
  • One moment she asked him to decide the future of the kennel, the next she dictated their lives.†   (source)
  • He leaned forward in his chair as though he were listening but no matter what we said—a moth flew into Miss Campbell's ear during dictation, Donald Harzbecker has been grounded for life—his response was the same.†   (source)
  • She wrote out the address on the envelope as Bai dictated it and got up to say good-bye.†   (source)
  • "We did overthrow their democratically elected government and install a dictator that terrorized them," pointed out Rory.†   (source)
  • That is, he should walk among the willows, read a timeless text, converse with a friend beneath the pergola, or reflect before the fire—engaging in those endeavors that have no appointed hour, and that dictate their own beginnings and ends.†   (source)
  • LALE AND LEON'S DAILY LIVES ARE STILL BEING DICTATED BY the arrival of transports from across Europe.†   (source)
  • How can the National Socialists have the nerve to dictate whom people can love!†   (source)
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show 190 more examples with any meaning
  • Erudite faction norms dictate that a faction member must wear at least one blue article of clothing at a time, because blue causes the body to release calming chemicals, and "a calm mind is a clear mind."†   (source)
  • With rhetoric that would be quoted frequently over the next several decades, Alabama's highest court affirmed the convictions, using language that dripped with contempt for the idea of interracial romance: The evil tendency of the crime [of adultery or fornication] is greater when committed between persons of the two races....Its result may be the amalgamation of the two races, producing a mongrel population and a degraded civilization, the prevention of which is dictated by a sound policy affecting the highest interests of society and government.†   (source)
  • You dictate, and I'll write it.†   (source)
  • He would sit, when he was up to it, and dictate the responses to friends and family who gathered for their letter-writing sessions.†   (source)
  • To make sure this would always be an option, mission rules dictated no more than three people could be in a rover at once, and both rovers had to be fully functional or we couldn't use either.†   (source)
  • He continued routing his phone calls through Mercer House and dictating letters that were typed at home on his engraved stationery.†   (source)
  • A scarlet-robed man with a ponytail longer than Bill's was sitting with his boots up on his desk, dictating a report to his quill.†   (source)
  • He wrote: 1 = MISFIT 2 = ODDBALL 3 = LONE WOLF 4 = WEIRDO 5 = GENIUS And then he added his newest category: 6 = DICTATOR Mai had to take a second city bus across town to the Gardens of Glenwood.†   (source)
  • We get to dictate terms, right?†   (source)
  • Swim team etiquette dictated that no matter how big a swimming star you were, if someone caught your feet on a set, you let them go ahead of you.†   (source)
  • Mr. Langdon, it is true that Vatican rule dictates the camerlegno assume chief executive office during conclave, but it is only because his lack of eligibility for the papacy ensures an unbiased election.†   (source)
  • When the laws for the Games were laid out, they dictated that every twenty-five years the anniversary would be marked by a Quarter Quell.†   (source)
  • It's just that sometimes, our future is dictated by what we are, as opposed to what we want.'†   (source)
  • Do you think I can sit in my Whisperer every minute, every hour of the day, dictating to my Messengers?†   (source)
  • Yes, she'll make a dictator a fine wife one day.†   (source)
  • He was turning out to be quite a little dictator.†   (source)
  • He dictates to them in Irish and makes me correct what they've written.†   (source)
  • Our food choices are not just dictated by instinct.†   (source)
  • The squirrel took dictation.†   (source)
  • All at once she seemed to hear Nacha's voice dictating a recipe, a prehispanic recipe involving rose petals.†   (source)
  • Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust.†   (source)
  • We had often been sorry that we were too young to have fought with Chairman Mao against the Japanese invaders, who tried to conquer China; against the dictator Chiang Kai-shek, who ruthlessly oppressed the Chinese people; and against the American aggressors in Korea.†   (source)
  • WE NEED AN EMPRESS, NOT A DICTATOR!†   (source)
  • Then she dictated a letter to Annamma Chandy's brother-in-law who was the Regional Manager of Padma Pickles in Bombay.†   (source)
  • Dwarf etiquette dictated that gas be passed while still in the tunnel, but Mulch didn't have time for manners.†   (source)
  • SCORPIUS: And yes, logic would dictate I should be pursuing Polly—or allowing her to pursue me—she's a notorious beauty, after all—but a Rose is a Rose.†   (source)
  • Their problem was that they were trapped in roles dictated by the heavy weight of their country's cultural legacy.†   (source)
  • One of the most important moments of my life, I thought, dictated by the angle of the sun.†   (source)
  • When dragons lived in the wild, those circumstances were usually dictated by the availability of food.†   (source)
  • Necessity dictated.†   (source)
  • Carter was dictating what we would do, but as usual he hadn't told me everything.†   (source)
  • Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?†   (source)
  • The de facto dictator of five million doomed souls removed his glasses and dried them on his shirttail.†   (source)
  • The Irish Celibate Traveler Law also dictated that all guest beds be extremely creaky, sounding a rousing alarm every time one of its occupants so much as rolled over.†   (source)
  • "Etiquette dictates it be the left shoulder, your highness," Manet said around a mouthful of bread, grinning.†   (source)
  • I certainly had no way of knowing that in a time and place as far away as New York City nearly fifty years in the future, one among them would become my good friend and would dictate her extraordinary memoirs to me.†   (source)
  • The comfortable bungalow was just blocks from the dictator's huge wedding cake palace that the mobs had long ago burned down.†   (source)
  • One day, I pause during dictation and go to the kitchen to refresh my coffee and I find the two of them watching a movie together.†   (source)
  • Her purpose is to dictate to them material she wants to see introduced into legislation and sent as a letter to the Times, all the while protesting that she's merely a woman who doesn't understand these matters as a man would.†   (source)
  • Not dictate policy for every single human government and then tell us we're supposed to be grateful.†   (source)
  • He cabled Luther Rice, "...Burnham nor anyone else has any right to dictate whether we shall have a closed or open fence, any more than from an artistic standpoint."†   (source)
  • Aidid's clan (Habar Gidir), Ali Mandi Muhammad's clan (Abgaal), and other clans overthrew Somalia's dictator.†   (source)
  • "For your information, Leah," I informed her, just to kind of close things off, "your precious Lumumba would have taken over and been just as bad a dictator as any of them.†   (source)
  • way into her bones, chilled from months of outdoor cold, and the bathroom filled up with steam like a forest in the mountains, scented with pine and lavender from the soaps she had found, a kind of heaven, with towels so plush and fine that when she at last emerged she felt like a princess using them, or at least like the daughter of a dictator who was willing to kill without mercy in order for his children to pamper themselves with cotton such as this, to feel this exquisite sensation on their naked stomachs and thighs, towels that felt as if they had never been used before and might never be used again.†   (source)
  • Right there I just jotted down a few notes and started dictating the article to him as it came into my head, the way I wrote letters to God every night in my diary.†   (source)
  • They wanted to kill us, even though we'd just booted out their dictator, because we practiced a different religion than they did.†   (source)
  • If this were true, the gap between what reason dictates and what "we can see with our own eyes" would be unbridgeable.†   (source)
  • Eventually he turned his apartment into a chapel, began giving lectures on medical miracles, and told reporters he dreamed of moving to South America and becoming a dictator.†   (source)
  • No one had dictated to Lestat he was master of his small circle; but how they would have praised his inventiveness, his catlike toying with his victims.†   (source)
  • Every team now had more or less the same number of dollars to spend on players—the number dictated by the cap—and so the team that spent the dollars most efficiently should win.†   (source)
  • His succession to this chair had resulted more from ties within the Party structure than from personal ability, and his position would depend on consensus rule for years, until such time as his will could dictate policy.†   (source)
  • It has one single door-since this is all imaginary, there are no regulations dictating the number of emergency exits.†   (source)
  • The subject ....the subject dictates the form.†   (source)
  • An example for this continent of Indians and Negroes who spend their time making revolutions to overthrow one dictator and install another.†   (source)
  • That had been abandoned, but it was stark evidence of the strong links between the Iraqi dictator and Osama bin Laden's would-be warriors.†   (source)
  • She was not a person who would allow the system to dictate her life.†   (source)
  • As I am walking up the hill to the school bus this chilly day in June, I am thinking how sometimes it feels like my life is dictated by something or someone else.†   (source)
  • Why would you ever let someone else's negative thoughts dictate how you're going to live your life?†   (source)
  • As soon as the robbers were gone he went to a public telephone and dictated his story for live broadcast.†   (source)
  • They would not castrate or shear animals unless the moon was right, and they would not gather crops or save next year's seeds unless the moon dictated.†   (source)
  • I wanted to dictate my own thrilling letters.†   (source)
  • "At this rate," he concluded, "you'll not only be the most despotic and bloody dictator in our history, but you'll shoot my dear friend Ursula in an attempt to pacify your conscience."†   (source)
  • "Lootie give me so much trouble," LuLing dictated, as if Ruth were invisible, "maybe I send her go Taiwan, school for bad children.†   (source)
  • For punishment, she dictated that the next week I had to go to church in my stocking feet.†   (source)
  • That right at this very moment there are riders in interview contracts that dictate whole swaths of forbidden conversational topics that, though they don't name her specifically, are all about obliterating her from the record.†   (source)
  • Wasn't Hitler's own struggle to express himself in German the crucial subtext of his massive ranting autobiography, dictated in a fortress prison in the Bavarian hills?†   (source)
  • They were also discreet, in keeping with the dictates of their trade.†   (source)
  • When Adam's team deployed to Operation Enduring Freedom in March 2010, the SEALs were spread across Afghanistan to cover a range of responsibilities dictated to them by the generals and admirals in charge of strategic operations.†   (source)
  • And though Cass, Vivaldo, and Ida were interested in the film principally because Eric appeared in it, the attention which they brought to it was dictated by the silent intensity of Eric's adoration.†   (source)
  • At home, my life is dictated by my mom and dad.†   (source)
  • The stove had three rings, but it was the bulging oven below, which resembled a certain fallen dictator's potbelly, that gave it its name.†   (source)
  • Market efficiencies dictate that greater risks must accompany greater reward.†   (source)
  • Mattie looked at the inked markings on the slip of paper that dictated the conditions for her ever touching Basil again.†   (source)
  • Moreover, Smith, while dictating his statement, had revealed the where-abouts of other potent evidence.†   (source)
  • It wasn't loud enough to really make out what she was saying, but at times it sounded like there were two people in there, one dictating and one just rushing to get it down, one clackety-clacking line at a time.†   (source)
  • Love shouldn't be dictated.†   (source)
  • As he came to be taken more seriously enemies arose and his name soon reached the ear of the dictator Diaz.†   (source)
  • The official, public policy would be to assure the safety of the children at whatever cost the bargaining dictated.†   (source)
  • Except for the chrome the panel and shower look just like the hydrotherapy outfits they used at the old hospital fifteen years ago: nozzles capable of reaching parts of the body from every angle, a technician in a rubber apron standing on the other side of the room manipulating the controls on that panel, dictating which nozzles squirt where, how hard, how hot-spray opened soft and soothing, then squeezed sharp as a needle-you hung up there between the nozzles in canvas straps, soaked and limp and wrinkled while the technician enjoyed his toy.†   (source)
  • Indeed, for a period of six months the Congress at Baltimore had made him a virtual dictator.†   (source)
  • He says we should all live our daily lives according to the dictates of religion and pay no heed to the regime, completely ignore it.†   (source)
  • And the first story I covered I had to dictate over the telephone to one of those beastly girls.†   (source)
  • I waited for Fate, the string puller, to dictate my movements.†   (source)
  • And Mother Teresa, who came to Haiti in 1981, during the time of Baby Doc, and, as one historian put it, "gushed" over the profligate dictator and his widely hated wife, Michele, who had looted millions from the Haitian treasury for her worldwide shopping sprees.†   (source)
  • In 1966, one year after Nicolae Ceausescu became the Communist dictator of Romania, he made abortion illegal.†   (source)
  • The job that waited for me wasn't as good as the job that I thought I had accepted, and it pricked my pride so deeply that I let anger rule my reactions, and dictate the future.†   (source)
  • But she refused to allow fear to dictate her moves.†   (source)
  • "Tell the warden," Shay dictated, "that I want to donate my heart, after he kills me.†   (source)
  • Occasionally he left Buenos Aires to travel with his friend Maraa Kodama, dictating to her his thoughts on the felicity of a hot air balloon ride or the beauty of the tiger.†   (source)
  • The constitution strove to dictate all of the critical details of an individual's life, even the most private concerns of womanhood.†   (source)
  • I understand that custom dictates a mourning period for at least a year.†   (source)
  • No, I can't let personal feuds dictate my actions.†   (source)
  • Pop would prepare a special Saturday movie meal that was a respite from the endless march of starch in the dining hall dictated by the BOP.†   (source)
  • Lettie Lang, to follow the precise dictates of Mr. Hubbard's wishes.†   (source)
  • On the other hand, he had fanatically ridiculed Eisenhower about Castro and knew he would look soft on communism if he did nothing to deter the brutal dictator.†   (source)
  • I mean, the government has no right to dictate who can and can't publicly declare their love for each other.†   (source)
  • Can't take dictation worth a damn, and she won't file.†   (source)
  • If Mr. Mompellion wanted to send a letter to the earl, or to his patron, Elinor's father, he would dictate it to Mr. Holbroke, so that the letter's recipient would not be alarmed by receiving a paper from a hand that had touched the hands of Plague victims.†   (source)
  • When the transmission ended, she did the two things her instincts dictated.†   (source)
  • In the process they improvised a kind of technocorporate community flavored, and protected, by the dictates of mass commercial production.†   (source)
  • "It is time to stop worrying about whether someone likes us and decide we are going to be respected again in the world," Reagan told Time's editors, "So no dictator would ever again seize our embassy and take our people."†   (source)
  • This on pain of death, that on pain of death ...the whole system one of threats and rewards dictated by some god we can't see.†   (source)
  • It was first proposed by Jonathan Swift, on the model of the French Academy, to dictate linguistic standards.†   (source)
  • The machinations of European powers and the funny mustached German dictator were as remote to our island in the fall of 1941 as Silas Marner, which sapped our energies through eighth-grade English.†   (source)
  • From then on she had let her emotions dictate her behavior.†   (source)
  • What would happen is that the real University, which no legislature can dictate to and which can never be identified by any location of bricks or boards or glass, would simply declare that this place was no longer "holy ground."†   (source)
  • He wants to be a dictator!†   (source)
  • Bourne's limp and the fact that he held on to the woman, dictated the closest available location.†   (source)
  • Because if some people survived longer than others—long enough to dictate a taped speech, or to arrange a hanging— then you have to ask yourself if someone maybe: didn't survive for a very long time.†   (source)
  • This injustice rankled, and at that moment I saw Dr. Kerr less as a benefactor than as a not-altogether-benign dictator.†   (source)
  • Cesar also stayed up past his self-dictated curfew, but he wasn't thinking about the victory that afternoon.†   (source)
  • Despondent over Seabiscuit's loss in the Santa Anita Handicap and seizing the opportunity to eat as his diabetes dictated while his suspension was in effect, he had gorged himself on steaks and ballooned up to 128 pounds.†   (source)
  • It is ridiculous—pestilential, not to be borne—that we should be ruled by an irresponsible dictator in all our essential economy!†   (source)
  • You can't dictate to the gods, Felicia.†   (source)
  • But hey, you're supposed to get it inside the bowl, and if you don't, protocol dictates you clean it up.†   (source)
  • The hands and forearms were modeled on the dictator's, including his exact thumb print.†   (source)
  • Orfeo's coming this afternoon so I can dictate letters and instructions, because I'm still working on cases.†   (source)
  • So, for now, the air force dictates that it needs 62210s.†   (source)
  • Every dictator is a mystic, and every mystic is a potential dictator.†   (source)
  • Once an Asian dictator told us to stop imposing our Western values on his people.†   (source)
  • But here I am—a widow, sitting quietly as tradition dictates—and I understand that I was blind for too many years.†   (source)
  • They would take over loose people and before long you had a dictator.†   (source)
  • Ferocious as his heritage dictated, though, the youth showed no fear, and Bruenor's hesitation had given him the first swing.†   (source)
  • It's said this was shouted by the Romans who murdered Caesar before he could become a dictator.†   (source)
  • Maybe, for once, I need to stop letting her dictate everything just because I want to keep her.†   (source)
  • You are a father, a dictator, a servant, the most agile actor this land has ever known.†   (source)
  • The laws of the universe dictate that for every positive action, there is an unequal and sucky reaction.†   (source)
  • Korie and I didn't have a ton of money, but we were happy, and we never let the balance of our bank account dictate our happiness.†   (source)
  • Against his better judgment, Ralph dictated.†   (source)
  • "Very well, I will dictate," said Peter.†   (source)
  • General Sykes was sitting there, smoking a cigar, staring down at some papers, dictating an order.†   (source)
  • The U.S. government also dictates that I can have only three shells in my shotgun at once, not four or five, which would be a lot more efficient.†   (source)
  • She, like them, would probably be a victim of a dictator.†   (source)
  • They had been sharpened to a razor's edge during the many years he served the Arab world's cruelest dictator.†   (source)
  • The struggle that ensued had been brief enough; it was over by May, 1923, some seven months before Yeats sailed to Stockholm, but it was bloody, savage and intimate, and for generations to come it would dictate the terms of politics within the twenty-six independent counties of Ireland, that part of the island known first of all as the Irish Free State and then subsequently as the Republic of Ireland.†   (source)
  • Each move is dictated by the previous one-that is the meaning of order.†   (source)
  • I've got to try and take dictation at fifty words a minute.†   (source)
  • Nothing but a dictator who did this and that to the people.†   (source)
  • They controlled the police, dictated all decisions of the Estates-General, and threw out many holders of high position in Brussels.†   (source)
  • But I must follow the dictates of my heart.†   (source)
  • By this time, indeed for several years, Sophie had been transcribing some of her father's dictation, and humble and subservient as any peonness, had taken on every secretarial chore he demanded.†   (source)
  • The whispering dictator hurried on, snatching at straws.†   (source)
  • Shoba's mood always dictated the mood of our lunch, and she seemed that day to want to punish us for the good lunch she had prepared.†   (source)
  • How long do you think Hitler's career as dictator of Germany would have lasted, if wherever he went a voice was talking quietly in his ear?†   (source)
  • Ace flipped two keys on the intercom and dictated an order.†   (source)
  • He wasn't used to thinking — most of his actions being dictated by custom and instinct rather than thought.†   (source)
  • "On the other hand, the statistics of births and deaths show," dictated Nikolai Nikolaievich.†   (source)
  • The door whipped open without warning, but as the lights went on I was calmly dictating.†   (source)
  • His stand seems to me entirely dictated by hatred of his superiors.†   (source)
  • Then reason dictates you hush.†   (source)
  • I have no desire to hold public office if I am expected blindly to follow in my official actions the dictation of a newspaper combination ....or be a rubber stamp even for the President of the United States.†   (source)
  • Miss Prinn crept into T'sung's office, horrified at the prospect of oral dictation.†   (source)
  • He looked at her almost with horror, as an alien creature who had no right to be with him, dictating what he should do.†   (source)
  • A rogue dictator was threatening the stability of the region.†   (source)
  • The dictator manages to plant a little piece of himself in every one of us.†   (source)
  • But just what conscience dictates can vary a lot from one person to the next.†   (source)
  • Dell put people in 7 categories: Misfit Oddball Lone Wolf Weirdo Genius Dictator Mutant†   (source)
  • I didn't have the heart to tell her that when I was home, he had always been a dictator.†   (source)
  • I don't remember electing you dictator, amigo.†   (source)
  • His house was opened and the public was invited to visit what they called "the dictator's palace.†   (source)
  • Everyone knew the dictator's wife hadn't written a word of it, but the audience clapped politely.†   (source)
  • My granddaughter Alba, however, saw the true nature of the dictator long before I did.†   (source)
  • When it came to the garden, I was a dictator.†   (source)
  • After all, our dictator was running a free country.†   (source)
  • First, we mean to depose the dictator in this and this way.†   (source)
  • A benevolent dictator is best, as Plato himself realized.†   (source)
  • She would have realized her father had lost brothers and friends to the dictator Trujillo.†   (source)
  • I will not enter on it, but in perfect freedom to follow the dictates of my own judgment.†   (source)
  • And in his mind he has done plenty to impress the Cuban dictator, Castro.†   (source)
  • At worst, a dictator can turn against both the majority and minority interests.†   (source)
  • Mr. Wine said no thrifty people was ever taken over by a dictator.†   (source)
  • If you order me to move into the office of an Economic Dictator, I'll move into it.†   (source)
  • And the only way they can be stopped from destroying each other is to live under a dictator.†   (source)
  • That makes the Soviet dictator smile: his nuclear warheads are equivalent to 1 million tons.†   (source)
  • You want me to be the Economic Dictator?†   (source)
  • Shortly after midnight, he sits down and dictates a new message to President Kennedy.†   (source)
  • Because the passions of men won't conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.†   (source)
  • You'll be-you'll be the Economic Dictator of the nation!†   (source)
  • But this logical sleight-of-hand doesn't remove the dictates of justice and common sense.†   (source)
  • How can they be combined with the ingredients that keep the republic safe from a dictator?†   (source)
  • But justice should not be subject to the whims of a dictator.†   (source)
  • But the plurality of the paranormal dictates it.†   (source)
  • We must all follow the dictates of our conscience, don't you agree?†   (source)
  • There were Fedayeen, members of a paramilitary resistance group the dictator had organized before the war.†   (source)
  • But he cannot escape the dynamic dictated to him by his culture in which subordinates must respect the dictates of their superiors.†   (source)
  • "Over the years military planners have arrived at a rule of thumb which dictates that functional fighting units cannot be substantially larger than 200 men," Dunbar writes.†   (source)
  • She had endured events at Imeperhaps even enforced the corrupt dictates of the governor herself, when ordered.†   (source)
  • I am your dictator.†   (source)
  • But decorum dictates that I should walk with him and my granddaughter Lira and my nine-year-old grandson.†   (source)
  • I see that Mai is a junior dictator.†   (source)
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