Other forms: dictations
Dictation is writing down words exactly as they are spoken. Take dictation, a dictation exercise, dictation software.
In schools it is a spelling and listening exercise, and in offices it was once a whole job — shorthand at speed, then typed up. Dictation software now does the transcribing, and doctors and lawyers use it heavily. Note take dictation; and that dictation implies exactness, which is why the word also carries a sense of being told what to do without discussion.
1noundictationWriting down words exactly as they are spoken.
“The secretary took dictation from her boss in shorthand.”
dictation is a form of transcription.
Latin dictatio comes from dictare, to say repeatedly, the frequentative of dicere, to say. Dictate, dictator and diction come from the same saying.
Proto-Indo-European
*deyḱ-
Latin
dictātiō
English, today
dictation
From Latin dictātiō, noun of action from dictātus, the perfect passive participle of dictō. by surface analysis, dictate + -ion.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA