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n. - A form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.); Dominance through threat of punishment and violence.

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Usage examples (37)
  • Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
  • Marx envisioned cooperation among all workers - the employed and unemployed - in labor unions as the means to destroy what he called the despotism of capitalism.
  • The difference between an understandable legislative process and despotism is transparency.
  • Yet the exercise of boundless despotism is happily checked by the laws of nature and necessity.
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We give special thanks to our LearnThat volunteers, as well as Princeton University and Wiktionary for their Open Source word data. We're also grateful for the support given by Google, Wordnik.com, Dictionary.com, Stands4.com and YouTube, OEDILF.com, Kylescholz.com, Best-Practice.com, Forvo.com, as well as the generous Creative Commons community.