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

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 Considered authoritative by experts, the CDC report contradicts popular story lines from both ends of the political spectrum. — Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar, BostonGlobe.com, "Americans cling to Obama-era health coverage, despite political drama," 22 May 2018 The supporting cast is underserved in the trailer other than Jocko Sims looking authoritative and Tyler Labine looking painfully serious. — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, "NBCUniversal's New Show Trailers: A Critic's Ranking," 14 May 2018 With frequent appearances on national TV talk shows, his authoritative voice is more familiar than most political leaders'. — azcentral, "From climate to fry bread, 125 reasons to love Arizona," 15 May 2015 Trump can essentially speak a sit-down into existence, which positions him as an authoritative source of information. — Callum Borchers, Washington Post, "President Trump, your source for breaking news about North Korea," 29 May 2018 Unfortunately, the ending seems like a random (though weirdly predictable) departure from an otherwise authoritative work. — Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle, "‘The Mars Room,’ by Rachel Kushner," 27 Apr. 2018 That's because the official exit poll—jointly funded by the BBC, Sky and ITV, and based on 20,000 face-to-face interviews—is the authoritative projection of the day's voting. — Cam Simpson, Bloomberg.com, "Brexit’s Big Short: How Pollsters Helped Hedge Funds Beat the Crash," 25 June 2018 Dustin Moskovitz’s quotes were taken from a keynote address at the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in December of 2008 and from David Kirkpatrick’s authoritative history, The Facebook Effect. — Adam Fisher, WIRED, "Sex, Beer, and Coding: Inside Facebook’s Wild Early Days," 10 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.