authoritative

adjective

au·thor·i·ta·tive | \ə-ˈthär-ə-ˌtā-tiv,

ȯ-, -ˈthȯr-\

Definition of authoritative

1 : having, marked by, or proceeding from authority authoritative church doctrines an authoritative decision an authoritative manner

2 : possessing recognized or evident authority : clearly accurate or knowledgeable an authoritative critique an authoritative source of information

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Examples of authoritative in a Sentence

The book is an authoritative guide to the city's restaurants. His manner is polite but authoritative. She addressed the group with an authoritative voice.

Recent Examples on the Web

Amid all the authoritative aspects of SFB’s limpid dancing, Sasha De Sola’s wondrous performance of the central of the dance’s five leading women deserves special mention. — Robert Greksovic, WSJ, "Dance as the Heart of the City," 7 Nov. 2018 Still, giving a single company power over your domain registration, certificates, authoritative DNS services, DNS lookups, and CDN delivery might just be a tad disconcerting to some. — Sean Gallagher, Ars Technica, "Cloudflare gets into registrar business with wholesale domains and free privacy," 28 Sep. 2018 That, according to the most authoritative research to date, is the amount of money humanity could save through a global shift to sustainable development. — David Roberts, Vox, "We could shift to sustainability and save $26 trillion. Why are aren’t we doing it?," 6 Sep. 2018 Here was the professor at his best: clear, authoritative, dramatic. — Johnforristerross, Longreads, "Taming the Great American Desert," 2 July 2018 Today's Google Assistant requires authoritative, direct, perfect speech in order to process a command. — Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica, "Talking to Google Duplex: Google’s human-like phone AI feels revolutionary," 27 June 2018 Like President Trump, many leaders, including myself, try to follow an authoritative leadership style requiring a highly loyal, trusted group of advisors, that understand the vision being set and can support the implementation of decisions. — Erin Arvedlund, Philly.com, "Trump fires Tillerson. So what do Philly CEOs think and how do they fire people?," 13 Mar. 2018 The book considered in retrospect as a whole is an admirably clear, straightforward and authoritative summing up of our present-day attitude toward the theatre and its outward expression. — New York Times, "Notes From the Book Review Archives," 4 May 2018 Identifying which news outlets are authoritative is hard enough in the United States, where people can subsist on completely different media diets according to their politics. — Issie Lapowsky, WIRED, "YouTube Debuts Plan to Promote and Fund 'Authoritative' News," 9 July 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'authoritative.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.