1. An order; a directive.
2. In legal positivism, the sovereign’s express desire that a person act or refrain from acting a certain way, combined with the threat of punishment for failure to comply.
“Commands are orders backed by threats. It is in virtue of threatened evils, sanctions, that expressions of desire not only constitute commands but also impose an obligation or duty to act in the prescribed ways.” Martin P. Golding, Philosophy of Law 26 (1975).
command, vb. To direct authoritatively; to order.
