ˌkau̇n-tər-ˈmand
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In the military, one's mandate is to follow the commands (and sometimes the countermands) of the officers. Doing their bidding is not particularly commendable—it's simply mandatory. The Latin verb mandare, meaning "to entrust" or "to order," is the authority behind countermand. It's also behind the words mandate, command, demand, commend (which can mean "to entrust" as well as "to praise"), and mandatory. Countermand came to English via Anglo French, where the prefix cuntre- ("against") was combined with the verb mander ("to command"). It has been a part of English since the 1400s.
Examples of countermand in a Sentence
Apress, Hartford Courant, 13 June 2024
His words highlight the fallacy that military leaders might act as a check on political leaders bent on starting a nuclear war: military officials in Cuba were never going to countermand political authorities in Moscow.
—Sergey Radchenko, Foreign Affairs, 3 Apr. 2023
Captain Burke, however, countermanded the order and ordered his ship back on its course across the open lake.
—Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY, 13 Feb. 2024
But several policing experts said that creating that kind of training presented a challenge because countermanding orders from an incident commander went against the very orientation of most police departments.
—Edgar Sandoval, New York Times, 24 May 2023
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Dictionary Entries Near countermand
Cite this Entry
“Countermand.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/countermand. Accessed 30 Dec. 2024.
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