autocracy

au·toc·ra·cy

noun \ȯ-ˈtä-krə-sē\

plural au·toc·ra·cies

Definition of AUTOCRACY

1

: the authority or rule of an autocrat

2

: government in which one person possesses unlimited power

3

: a community or state governed by autocracy

Examples of AUTOCRACY

1. <the Magna Carta is historically important because it signified the British rejection of autocracy and constituted the first formal restraining of the power of the monarch>

First Known Use of AUTOCRACY

1655

Related to AUTOCRACY

Synonyms: absolutism, autarchy, authoritarianism, despotism, Caesarism, czarism (also tsarism or tzarism), dictatorship, totalism, totalitarianism, tyranny

Related Words: monarchism, monarchy, monocracy; Big Brother, Big Brotherism, Communism, fascism, Nazism; domination, oppression

Near Antonyms: democracy, self-governance, self-government, self-rule; freedom, self-determination; autonomy, sovereignty (also sovranty)

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Other Government and Politics Terms

agent provocateur, agitprop, autarky, cabal, egalitarianism, federalism, hegemony, plenipotentiary, popular sovereignty, socialism

Rhymes with AUTOCRACY

bureaucracy, democracy, Eurocracy, kleptocracy, mobocracy, plantocracy, plutocracy, slavocracy, technocracy, theocracy