Noun

1. dictating, the process of speaking for someone else to write down the words

   Since I learned shorthand, I can take dictation at eighty words a minute.

2. an activity in school where the teacher reads a passage aloud and the students write it down

   1908: Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables - We had reading and geography and Canadian history and dictation today.

3. the act of ordering or commanding

   1852: Lysander Spooner, An Essay on the Trial by Jury - ...jurors in England have formerly understood it to be their right and duty to judge only according to their consciences, and not to submit to any dictation from the court, either as to law or fact.

4. orders given in an overbearing manner

   His habit, even with friends, was that of dictation.