as in tyranny
a system of government in which the ruler has unlimited power
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
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of autocracy
With autocracies outnumbering democracies for the first time in 20 years, and only 12% of the world’s population now living in a liberal democracy, the future of the global democratic experiment may well depend on the people of the United States.
—
Shelley Inglis, The Conversation, 19 Oct. 2025
This is a democracy versus autocracy issue.
—Andrea Hsu, NPR, 7 Oct. 2025
Peck fills the film with footage of contemporary autocracies and their infamous leaders (Marcos, Pinochet, Putin, Orbán).
—Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 3 Oct. 2025
The Biden administration completed the reversion to a Cold War frame, declaring a global divide between democracies and autocracies, with China and Russia reprising their roles as principal foes.
—Jennifer Kavanagh, Foreign Affairs, 30 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for autocracy
Shelley Inglis, The Conversation, 19 Oct. 2025
This is a democracy versus autocracy issue.
—Andrea Hsu, NPR, 7 Oct. 2025
Peck fills the film with footage of contemporary autocracies and their infamous leaders (Marcos, Pinochet, Putin, Orbán).
—Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 3 Oct. 2025
The Biden administration completed the reversion to a Cold War frame, declaring a global divide between democracies and autocracies, with China and Russia reprising their roles as principal foes.
—Jennifer Kavanagh, Foreign Affairs, 30 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for autocracy
Recent Examples of Synonyms for autocracy
Noun
-
These cars are sensational, liberating Honda’s engineering excellence from the tyranny of front-wheel drive.—
Robert Ross,
Robb Report,
28 Oct. 2025
-
Andrew Garfield leads the feature that is now in production, portraying the leader of a ferocious rebellion against the tyranny of King Richard II.—
Borys Kit,
HollywoodReporter,
20 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
Venezuelans got accustomed to dismissing it all as noise, just a pretext the dictatorship employed to stamp out civil rights.—
Quico Toro,
The Atlantic,
4 Nov. 2025
-
Communism is most readily associated with the one-party dictatorships of the Soviet Union and present-day China.—
Eduardo Cuevas,
USA Today,
3 Nov. 2025
Noun
-
No World Cup has been less about the self-aggrandizement of the hosts and yet no World Cup has ever been so overtly political as the 1938 tournament, as exiles from Germany and Italy took the opportunity to make very public their opposition to fascism.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 Nov. 2025
-
Swept up in the cinema-making of Italy’s auteurs, Nicholas finds himself on the sets of Fellini’s Casanova and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, a harrowing film about the death throes and reincarnations of fascism made just before the director’s murder.—
Jasmine Vojdani,
Vulture,
4 Nov. 2025
Noun
-
These achievements made the United States the political model of the liberal state, which displaced the monarchical dynasties of Europe in the nineteenth century, then rescued Western civilization from the totalitarian despotisms of Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union in the twentieth.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
28 Oct. 2025
-
In recent months, as despotism intensified an increasing number of writers, scholars, and thinkers were declared foreign agents, and their books were taken off the shelves.—
Nina Khrushcheva,
Time,
3 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
The war from within The chronology of the last few months shows a troubling acceleration of aspirational authoritarianism.—
Mercury News & East Bay Times editorial,
Mercury News,
7 Nov. 2025
-
The messy, vibrant democracy of my youth is a distant memory, snuffed out by a quarter century of ever harsher authoritarianism.—
Quico Toro,
The Atlantic,
4 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Autocracy.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/autocracy. Accessed 12 Nov. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share