different between dictate vs nictate

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin dict?tus, perfect passive participle of dict? (“pronounce or declare repeatedly; dictate”), frequentative of d?c? (“say, speak”).

Pronunciation

Noun

• IPA^(key): /?d?k?te?t/

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?d?k?te?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?d?k?te?t/
• Rhymes: -e?t

Noun

dictate (plural dictates)

1. An order or command.

   I must obey the dictates of my conscience.

Translations

Verb

dictate (third-person singular simple present dictates, present participle dictating, simple past and past participle dictated)

1. To order, command, control.
   • 2001, Sydney I. Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography, Cambridge University Press ?ISBN, page 409,

     Trademark Owners will nevertheless try to dictate how their marks are to be represented, but dictionary publishers with spine can resist such pressure.

2. To speak in order for someone to write down the words.

3. To determine or decisively affect.

Derived terms

• dictation
• dictator

Translations

See also

• diktat

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /dik?ta?.te/, [d??k?t?ä?t??]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /dik?ta.te/, [d?ik?t???t??]

Participle

dict?te

1. vocative masculine singular of dict?tus

Verb

dict?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of dict?

English

Etymology

From (the participle stem of) Latin nict?re (“to wink, blink”).

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /n?k?te?t/

Verb

nictate (third-person singular simple present nictates, present participle nictating, simple past and past participle nictated)

1. To wink or blink; (of certain animals) to close the nictating membrane. [from 18th c.]
   • 1909, Frederick Rolfe, Don Renato, Chatto & Windus 1963:

     Indignantly interrogated as to whether he himself believed or exercised this abhominable and perabsurd superstition, he very gravely nictated his dexter eyelid. And I nictated mine. And we both laughed.

   • 1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita:

     Gently I pressed my quivering sting along her rolling salty eyeball. ‘Goody-goody,’ she said nictating.

   • 2011, Perry & Wharton, Molecular and Physiological Basis of Nematode Survival, p. 113:

     In the absence of stimulation, C. elegans dauers are lethargic and generally immobile but nictate vigorously when disturbed.

Translations

Anagrams

• entatic, tetanic

Latin

Participle

nict?te

1. vocative masculine singular of nict?tus