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What the will dictates or prefers as gratifying or satisfying; hence, will; choice; wish; purpose. "He will do his pleasure on Babylon." Isa. xlviii. 14. Use your pleasure; if your love do not presuade you to come, let not my letter. Shak.

oritatively as a guide, direction, or rule of action; to impose as a peremptory order; to dictate; to appoint; to direct. Prescribe not us our duties. Shak. Let streams prescribe their fountains where to run. Dryden.

To suggest; to dictate. And whispering angles prompt her golden dreams. Pope.

ally wise; judicious; careful; discreet; sensible; -- opposed to rash; as, a prudent man; dictated or directed by prudence or wise forethought; evincing prudence; as, prudent behavior. Moses established a grave and prudent law. Milton.

Proceeding from, or dictated or characterized by, prudence; prudent; discreet; sometimes, selfish or pecuniary as distinguished from higher motives or influences; as, prudential motives. " A prudential line of conduct." Sir W. Scott.

Dictated by a regard to public good; as, a public-spirited project or measure. Addison. -- Pub"lic-spir`it*ed*ly, adv. -- Pub"lic-spir`it*ed*ness, n.

ight intellectual judgment; clear and fair deductions from true principles; that which is dictated or supported by the common sense of mankind; right conduct; right; propriety; justice. I was promised, on a time, To have reason for my rhyme. Spenser. But law in a free nation hath been ever public reason; the enacted re…

g under influence of reason; thinking, speaking or acting rationally, or according to the dictates of reason; agreeable to reason; just; rational; as, the measure must satisfy all reasonable men. By indubitable certainty, I mean that which doth not admit of any reasonable cause of doubting. Bp. Wilkins. Men have no rig…

Dictate; command; decree. [Obs.] [Love] rules the creatures by his powerful saw. Spenser.

e lower orders, some laughing, others backing the soldier or the minister, as their fancy dictated. Sir W. Scott.

To utter sounds with musical inflections or melodious modulations of voice, as fancy may dictate, or according to the notes of a song or tune, or of a given part (as alto, tenor, etc.) in a chorus or concerted piece. The noise of them that sing do I hear. Ex. xxxii. 18.

upefying, or the state of being stupefied. [Written also stupifaction.] Resistance of the dictates of conscience brings a hardness and stupefaction upon it. South.

Puritan austerity was so tempered by Dutch indifference, that mercy itself could not have dictated a milder system. Bancroft. Woman! lovely woman! nature made thee To temper man: we had been brutes without you. Otway. But thy fire Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher. Byron. She [the Goddess of Justice] thre…

Dictated or guided by wisdom; containing or exhibiting wisdom; well adapted to produce good effects; judicious; discreet; as, a wise saying; a wise scheme or plan; wise conduct or management; a wise determination. "Eminent in wise deport." Milton. To make it wise, to make it a matter of deliberation. [Obs.] " We though…