dictate to

phrasal verb

dictated to; dictating to; dictates to

: to give orders to (someone)

—usually used as (be) dictated to

I resent being dictated to by someone with half my experience.

Examples of dictate to in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

That de-escalation can be expected to last about as long as the two countries’ intemperate presidents manage to stay off X. But for excellent historical reasons, Latin Americans hate being dictated to by gringos and won’t support leaders who meekly allow it. —

Quico Toro, The Atlantic, 27 Jan. 2025 Trump agreed and started dictating to his press team. —

Barak Ravid, Axios, 16 Jan. 2025 Whispering Mode lets users dictate to Flow when others are around simply by whispering the words. —

Mark Sparrow, Forbes, 30 Sep. 2024 Americans do not like to have their major decisions dictated to them. —

Casey B. Mulligan, National Review, 25 Sep. 2024 Still, Hoffman’s demanding and radical view of documentary filmmaking and its inherent contrivances was artistically fruitful, not as a dictate to other filmmakers but a guiding light for his own work. —

Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2024 The Pentagon needs to work with, not dictate to, the private sector. —

William J. Burns, Foreign Affairs, 10 June 2024 Scott Hanselman, a Microsoft vice president who looks after its global developer community, says that in the pre-Nadella era, Microsoft had a reputation for dictating to developers and forcing them to use the company’s entire tech stack. —

Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 20 May 2024 Still, the perception that European powers are dictating to their governments stings. —

Patricia Cohen Jes Aznar, New York Times, 14 Mar. 2024