Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Relating to or expressing entreaty or supplication.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Relating to prayer; being in the form of a prayer or supplication.
Wiktionary
- adj. Expressing a wish.
- adj. Expressing a wish but not creating any legal obligation or duty.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. expressing entreaty or supplication
Etymologies
- Late Latin precātōrius, from Latin precārī, to entreat; see precarious.
Examples
“Siegfried called that wording "precatory" -- a suggestion -- and not mandatory, leaving open the possibility that the money could go out after the specified date.”
“Barnett thinks Congress may make precatory resolutions:”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Is the Health Care Mandate a Direct Tax?
“Note that if legislators were somehow! required to read all bills passed into law, they would just withdraw into precatory vagaries, and leave all the detail to bureaucrats.”
“The view that the Confrontation Clause and the Right to Trial by Jury are merely precatory, to be ignored whenever a prosecutor wants to admit an “Expert” report, or when a factual issue can plausibly be characterized as merely a sentencing factor?”
“Because the Constitution gives the President the discretion to recommend only “such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient” Article II, section 3 of the Constitution, the specified officers and I shall treat these directions as precatory.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Recalling Candidate Obama on Signing Statements:
“Finally, the militia clause is what is referred to by lawyers as "precatory language.”
“You see, unlike advisory resolutions, or precatory proposals on the shareholder ballot, this resolution will enact a bylaw (a law of the corporation) and codify "sustainability.”
“Carter objected that Congress "cannot mandate the establishment of consular relations at a time and place unacceptable to the President," and accordingly stated his determination to construe the provision as merely precatory.”
“Whether the 2d Amend's introductory phrase is precatory or limiting, the amendment says that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
What effect will the Supreme Court's gun case have on the '08 election?
“If some of the criticisms of the ISG report are right, as one thinks, especially because so much of the report seems precatory, seems based on hope rather than reality, then a bipartisan push behind the Baker report would likely be only another step on the road to an even bigger disaster.”
Sanity, Competence, And The Latest Washington Crock About Iraq.
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘precatory’.
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Adjectival Arcana
A roster of adjectives that infrequently surface in typical conversation and writing. Many are dredged from scientific or other technical jargon or sieved from examples of disused archaic forms.
unitegmic, acaulescent, reticuloendothelial, ingressive, uniate, acanthopterygian, ossific, epiphysial, perivisceral, acœlomatous, cestoid, acælomate and 7762 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 414 more...
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Arguing, reasoning, thinking
expostulate, precatory, ad hominem, quodlibet, sophistry, intellection, cogitate, contradistinguish, adduce, retrodiction
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