mandamus

1. 1.

   an extraordinary writ commanding an official to perform a ministerial act that the law recognizes as an absolute duty and not a matter for the official's discretion; used only when all other judicial remedies fail

   Synonymswrit of mandamus

   Broaderwrit

   law

Other forms of mandamus

plural

mandamuses·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about mandamus

What does mandamus mean?

mandamus means "an extraordinary writ commanding an official to perform a ministerial act that the law recognizes as an absolute duty and not a matter for the official's discretion; used only when all other judicial remedies fail".

How many syllables are in mandamus?

mandamus has 3 syllables: man-da-mus. The stress falls on "da". In IPA it is /mænˈdeɪməs/.

What is another word for mandamus?

Close synonyms include writ of mandamus. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is mandamus a common word?

mandamus is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.