ukase

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree Russian ука́з (ukáz)bor. English ukase Borrowed from Russian ука́з (ukáz, “edict, decree”).

1. An authoritative proclamation; an edict, especially decreed by a Russian czar or later ruler.

   “Many estates peopled with crown peasants have been, according to an ukase of Peter the Great, ceded to particular individuals on condition of establishing manufactories […]”

   “An Ukase, it appears, has been issued by the Emperor Alexander, to facilitate the introduction of calimancoes and other Norwich goods into his Empire.”

2. Any absolutist order or arrogant proclamation

   “I knew a stunned plunge of disappointment and a bitter anger. What right had he to issue such an arbitrary ukase?”

   “It is a short step from discovering that the world we know is a fake or a cheat to discovering that human beings are themselves factitious: that we are robots, ‘simulacra’ (the title of one of Dick’s novels), ‘just reflex machines’, ‘repeating doomed patterns, a single pattern, over and over’ in accordance with biological or economic ukases.”