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veto

noun · verb

Simple meaning

A political right to disapprove of a decision, a law etc.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

veetoh

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈvitoʊ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. A political right to disapprove of (and thereby stop) the process of a decision, a law etc.

  2. An invocation of that right.

  3. The power or right to prohibit or reject a proposed or intended act (especially the power of a chief executive to reject a bill passed by the legislature)

  4. An authoritative prohibition or negative; a forbidding; an interdiction.

verb

  1. Command against

  2. Vote against; refuse to endorse; refuse to assent

  3. transitive

    To countermand.

  4. transitive

    To use a veto against.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: A political right to disapprove of (and thereby stop) the process of a decision, a law etc.

Used this way, veto is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Law/legal
  • Government/politics
  • Academic writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.