A public command or ordinance by the sovereign power; the proclamation of a law made by an absolute authority, as if by the very act of announcement; a decree; as, the edicts of the Roman emperors; the edicts of the French monarch
An edict is a command or instruction given by someone in authority. He issued an edict that none of his writings be destroyed
a legally binding command or decision entered on the court record (as if issued by a court or judge); "a friend in New Mexico said that the order caused no trouble out there"