Word.ws English Dictionary

dictum

Syllables: dic·tum/ˈdɪk.təm/

dictum noun: an authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying; a maxim, an apothegm.

dictum: Book with text about self-awareness and attention
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Noun

dictum (plural dicta or dictums)

  1. An authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying; a maxim, an apothegm.
    • This should not surprise us who know that van Gogh wrote: 'To paint and to love women is incompatible'; van Gogh was right for himself, which does not mean that he was right for everybody, and I will not draw from his dictum the probably incorrect conclusion that 'To paint and to love literature is...1918, Walter Lionel George, A Novelist on Novels
    • […]a dictum which he had heard an economics professor once propound[…]1949, Bruce Kiskaddon, George R. Stewart, Earth Abides
  2. A judicial opinion expressed by judges on points that do not necessarily arise in the case, and are not involved in it.
  3. The report of a judgment made by one of the judges who has given it.
  4. An arbitrament or award.

dictum meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

dictum in Tamil

ஆணை, கருத்துரை, பழமொழி, மூதுரை

dictum in Urdu

کہنا, قول, روایت

dictum in Telugu

dictum, an aphorism, a rule
వచనము vacanamu

dictum in Malayalam

proclamation, pronouncement, direction
വിധിവാചകം, ആധികാരികപ്രഖ്യാപനം, അധികൃതപ്രഖ്യാപനം, മാർഗ്ഗനിർദ്ദേശം, നിരോധന ഉത്തരവ്, ആജ്ഞ
axiom, saying, maxim
പ്രമാണവാക്യം, പ്രമാണസൂക്തം, മഹദ്വചനം, പ്രവാദം, പറച്ചിൽ, ലപിതം
More languagesFewer languages
dictum in Kannada
ನಾಣ್ಣುಡಿ, ಗಾದೆಮಾತು, ವಚನ, ಸೂತ್ರ

Examples of dictum in a sentence

  • She accepted unquestioningly the dictum that a woman's place is in the home.
  • Mostly technical jargon and arbitrary fortune-cookieish dictums on violence and heredity.
  • All the Chassidic dictums about life were racing through my mind.

All 13 example sentences with dictum

Forms of dictum

pluraldicta
pluraldictums

Plural of dictum: dicta or dictums

Origin of dictum

From Latin dictum (“proverb, maxim”), from dictus (“having been said”), perfect passive participle of dico (“to say”). Compare Spanish dicho (“saying”). Doublet of dict.

Words formed from dictum

Questions about dictum

What does dictum mean?
Dictum means an authoritative statement; a dogmatic saying; a maxim, an apothegm.
What is dictum in Tamil?
Dictum in Tamil is ஆணை, கருத்துரை, பழமொழி. See Dictum meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is dictum?
Dictum is a noun.
How do you pronounce dictum?
Dictum is pronounced /ˈdɪk.təm/ (UK).
What is the plural of dictum?
The plural of dictum is dicta.

Words near dictum in the dictionary

  1. dictoglosses
  2. dictograph
  3. dictographs
  4. dicts
  5. dicts.
  6. dictum
  7. dictums
  8. dicty
  9. dictyate
  10. dictyates
  11. dictynid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dictum (page history and authors); dictum (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); dictum (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); వచనము (Telugu) (page history and authors); dictum (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); dictum (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dictum.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dictum. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.