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In his 1755 dictionary, Samuel Johnson said of despot, "this word is not in use, except as applied to some Dacian prince; as the despot of Servia." Indeed at that time, the word was mainly used to identify some very specific rulers or religious officials, and the title was an honorable one: it comes from a Greek word meaning "lord" or "master." That situation changed toward the end of the 18th century, perhaps because French Revolutionists, who were said to have been "very liberal in conferring this title," considered all sovereigns to be tyrannical. Eventually, despot came to be used primarily for any ruler who wielded absolute and often contemptuous and oppressive power.
Examples of despot in a Sentence
Alison Willmore, Vulture, 25 Sep. 2025
Armed with such sensational journalistic and fictional sources, artists from across the world, one after the other, proclaimed in virtual artistic unison that King Henry had been nothing more than a despot who essentially re-enslaved his people.
—Marlene L. Daut
september 22, Literary Hub, 22 Sep. 2025
That’s reminiscent of what the despots of Eastern Europe did during the Cold War, building huge concrete apartment blocks with meager square-foot allotments per family.
—Betsy McCaughey, Boston Herald, 12 Sep. 2025
That movie also marks one of the earliest appearances of the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein.
—Nick Marx, The Conversation, 11 Sep. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Despot.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/despot. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
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despot
noun
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