dictator

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noun dic·ta·tor \ ˈdik-ˌtā-tər , dik-ˈ \

Definition of dictator

1 a :a person granted absolute emergency power; especially, history :one appointed by the senate (see senate 1a) of ancient Rome

b :one holding complete autocratic control :a person with unlimited governmental power

c :one ruling in an absolute (see absolute 2) and often oppressive way

fascist dictators

2 :one who says or reads something for a person to transcribe or for a machine to record :one that dictates (see ¹dictate 1)

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Examples of dictator in a Sentence

The country was ruled by a military dictator.
the dictator had a fierce stranglehold on the country, keeping its people in poverty and ignorance

Recent Examples of dictator from the Web

While the United States hasn’t had a dictator (yet, anyway), one doesn’t have to pore over the volumes of our national history for very long before coming across pages that have been singed by fascism.

— aaron carico, Teen Vogue, "5 Ways Fascism Has Existed in America Since the 1700s," 28 Aug. 2017
Her own parents are South Asian refugees who were expelled from Uganda in 1972 by dictator Idi Amin in his quest to rid the country of all Asians.

— sam gillette, PEOPLE.com, "Closing the Gender Gap in Technology: How the Founder of Girls Who Code Is Teaching Girls Coding and Confidence," 22 Aug. 2017
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Korea wasn't always a politically divided peninsula with a democratic south and an authoritarian north led by a dictator trading tit-for-tat threats of nuclear annihilation with an American president.

— steven litt, cleveland.com, "Chaekgeori paintings from Korea evoke peaceful, quiet study at CMA (photos)," 13 Aug. 2017
The brainwashed North Korean population is cut off from global news and knows nothing other than three generations of Kim family dictators.

— victor davis hanson, National Review, "West Can Neither Live with nor Take Out North Korean Nukes," 13 July 2017
Fighting ISIS in Syria, Ukraine and Russia’s ongoing support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

— adam k. raymond, Daily Intelligencer, "Trump Reportedly Prepping for Putin Meeting With ‘Tweet-Length’ Briefings," 5 July 2017
This May, the war in Benghazi passed its 36th month—longer than the uprising that unseated dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

— frederic wehrey, The Atlantic, "'Whoever Controls Benghazi Controls Libya'," 1 July 2017
Ukraine won the right to host the contest thanks to the victory of its entrant, singer Jamala, in the 2016 contest with a song about the 1944 deportation of Tatars from Crimea ordered by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

— vladimir kozlov, Billboard, "Ukraine Facing 'Substantial Fine' for Barring Eurovision's Russian Entrant," 30 June 2017
The 54-year-old socialist leader has faced three months of protests from opposition leaders who decry him as a dictator who has wrecked a once-prosperous economy.

— author: silene ramírez, eyanir chinea, Alaska Dispatch News, "Grenades dropped from helicopter on Venezuela’s Supreme Court building," 28 June 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'dictator.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.