mandates

Noun

mandate (plural mandates)

1. An official or authoritative command; an order or injunction; a commission; a judicial precept; an authorization.
   • Enactive. Expositive. / Art. 57. XIII 2. The Registrative, or say Recordative: exercised, by the arrangements and operations, by which, in conformity to corresponding ordinances and mandates, the accounts, given at different periods by the exercise of the statistic function, are kept in contiguity...1830, Jeremy Bentham, Constitutional code: for the use all nations and all governments ..., volume 1, page 251

   Synonyms:

   compulsion, obligation, authority, sanction, allowance, authorization, clearance, consent, leave, license

2. The order or authority to do something, as granted to a politician by the electorate.
   • John Tyler and James K. Polk both regarded the election results as a mandate for the annexation of Texas.2002, Leroy G. Dorsey, The Presidency and Rhetorical Leadership, Texas A&M University Press, →ISBN, page 30
3. (Canada) A period during which a government is in power.
   • Throughout his last mandate, from 1980 to 1984, Mr. Trudeau insisted that we see ourselves solely as Canadians, that we set aside the historic compromises that underlie Canada as a federation.2000 October 6, John Richards, “Pierre Elliott Trudeau: 1919-2000”, in The Globe and Mail, archived from the original on 09 Oct 2019
4. (historical) An order by the League of Nations to a member nation to establish a government responsible for a conquered territory, as the colonies of Germany after World War I.
   1. (historical) Such a territory.

See all 9 meanings of mandate