"Mandate of Heaven" meaning in English

See Mandate of Heaven in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Proper name

Forms: the Mandate of Heaven [canonical]
Etymology: Calque of Literary Chinese 天命. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|lzh|天命}} Calque of Literary Chinese 天命 Head templates: {{en-proper noun|def=1|head=Mandate of Heaven}} the Mandate of Heaven
  1. The philosophical construct that is the basis of the authority of the Son of Heaven. Categories (topical): Monarchism, Monarchy
    Sense id: en-Mandate_of_Heaven-en-name-W~eeWtlZ Disambiguation of Monarchism: 57 15 18 11 Disambiguation of Monarchy: 59 13 17 11 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Japanese translations, Terms with Khmer translations, Terms with Korean translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Tagalog translations, Terms with Thai translations, Terms with Vietnamese translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 62 13 13 12 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 74 8 14 5 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 66 8 15 11 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 65 14 13 8 Disambiguation of Terms with Japanese translations: 70 11 14 6 Disambiguation of Terms with Khmer translations: 58 12 18 12 Disambiguation of Terms with Korean translations: 65 10 16 9 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 66 9 17 8 Disambiguation of Terms with Tagalog translations: 62 12 17 10 Disambiguation of Terms with Thai translations: 55 13 18 14 Disambiguation of Terms with Vietnamese translations: 64 10 16 10

Noun

Forms: Mandates of Heaven [plural]
Etymology: Calque of Literary Chinese 天命. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|lzh|天命}} Calque of Literary Chinese 天命 Head templates: {{en-noun|Mandates of Heaven|head=Mandate of Heaven}} Mandate of Heaven (plural Mandates of Heaven)
  1. Any such mandate or blessing. Translations (any such mandate or blessing): 天命 (tiānmìng) (Chinese Mandarin), 天命 (tenmei) (alt: てんめい) (Japanese), បញ្ជាទេព្ដា (bɑɑñciəteipdaa) (Khmer), អាណត្តិទេព្ដា (ʼaantteteipdaa) (Khmer), 천명 (cheonmyeong) (alt: 天命) (Korean), Mandato ng Langit (Tagalog), อาณัติแห่งสวรรค์ (aa-nát-hɛ̀ɛng-sà-wǎn) (Thai), thiên mệnh (Vietnamese)
    Sense id: en-Mandate_of_Heaven-en-noun-N7AgRGyW Disambiguation of 'any such mandate or blessing': 86 11 3
  2. The Chinese philosophical concept of the circumstances under which a ruler is allowed to rule. Good rulers would be allowed to rule with the Mandate of Heaven, and despotic, unjust rulers would have the Mandate revoked by disasters or revolution. Related terms: Son of Heaven, Celestial Empire, divine right
    Sense id: en-Mandate_of_Heaven-en-noun-qiWQvCBx
  3. (figurative, often humorous) The preeminence of an incumbent or institution other than that of the rulers of China. Tags: figuratively, humorous, often Categories (topical): Chinese politics, History of China Categories (place): China, Chinese philosophy
    Sense id: en-Mandate_of_Heaven-en-noun-7yRdV4Wp Disambiguation of Chinese politics: 28 5 25 41 Disambiguation of History of China: 23 4 18 55 Disambiguation of China: 33 5 21 41 Disambiguation of Chinese philosophy: 30 5 26 39

Inflected forms

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      "word": "天命"
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      "word": "อาณัติแห่งสวรรค์"
    },
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      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "sense": "any such mandate or blessing",
      "word": "thiên mệnh"
    }
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  "word": "Mandate of Heaven"
}

Download raw JSONL data for Mandate of Heaven meaning in English (4.6kB)

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  "msg": "more than one value in \"roman\": banhjie teip da vs. bɑɑñciəteipdaa",
  "path": [
    "Mandate of Heaven"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "Mandate of Heaven",
  "trace": ""
}

{
  "called_from": "form_descriptions/2013",
  "msg": "more than one value in \"roman\": aanat teip da vs. ʼaantteteipdaa",
  "path": [
    "Mandate of Heaven"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "Mandate of Heaven",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (f2d86ce and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.