English

Noun

ipse dixit ‎(plural ipse dixits)

1. (rhetoric) An unproved proposition that is accepted solely on the authority of someone who is known to have asserted it; a dogmatic statement; a dictum.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Book V, chapter i

     To avoid, therefore, all imputation of laying down a rule for posterity, founded only on the authority of ipse dixit—for which, to say the truth, we have not the profoundest veneration...

   • 1858 August 21, Stephen A. Douglas, Rejoinder at Ottawa, Illinois

     Mr. Lincoln has not character enough for integrity and truth, merely on his own ipse dixit, to arraign President Buchanan, President Pierce, and nine Judges of the Supreme Court, not one of whom would be complimented by being put on an equality with him. There is an unpardonable presumption in a man putting himself up before thousands of people, and pretending that his ipse dixit, without proof, without fact, and without truth, is enough to bring down and destroy the purest and best of living men.

2. An authority who makes such an assertion.

See also

• ipse dixit on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

• J[ohn] A. Simpson and E[dward] S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ISBN 978-0-19-861186-8.