1
as in arbitrary
exercising power or authority without interference by others
a dictatorial leader with total control over people's lives
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in authoritarian
fond of ordering people around
no surprise that the dictatorial manager is highly unpopular among employees
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in arrogant
having or showing a tendency to force one's will on others without any regard to fairness or necessity
even the teachers chafed under the dictatorial rule of the principal
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of dictatorial
Hollywood is now under the dictatorial realm of the technology companies.
—
Maer Roshan, HollywoodReporter, 21 May 2025
Yet before the press arrived, Trump shared a different, less equivocal message with El Salvador’s dictatorial president, Nayib Bukele, who has already built sprawling maximum-security complexes in service of Trump’s scheme to deport noncitizens out of legal reach.
—Michael Wilner, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2025
Compared with Russia’s dictatorial tsarist and communist eras and its chaotic decade after the Soviet Union fell, the country had never been so prosperous and so free at the same time.
—Alexander Gabuev, Foreign Affairs, 17 Apr. 2025
Fortunately, the courts have so far blocked this dictatorial impulse.
—Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register, 16 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dictatorial
Maer Roshan, HollywoodReporter, 21 May 2025
Yet before the press arrived, Trump shared a different, less equivocal message with El Salvador’s dictatorial president, Nayib Bukele, who has already built sprawling maximum-security complexes in service of Trump’s scheme to deport noncitizens out of legal reach.
—Michael Wilner, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2025
Compared with Russia’s dictatorial tsarist and communist eras and its chaotic decade after the Soviet Union fell, the country had never been so prosperous and so free at the same time.
—Alexander Gabuev, Foreign Affairs, 17 Apr. 2025
Fortunately, the courts have so far blocked this dictatorial impulse.
—Steven Greenhut, Orange County Register, 16 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dictatorial
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dictatorial
Adjective
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State lawmakers can and should repeal the arbitrary two-year rule.—
Sakinah Tillman,
Baltimore Sun,
4 June 2025
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Officials have often shaken this number off as arbitrary, but agree military spending needs to surge from the 2 percent benchmark of the last decade, and quickly.—
Ellie Cook,
MSNBC Newsweek,
3 June 2025
Adjective
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But then again, almost everything Trump does is right out of the authoritarian playbook.—
Sun Sentinel Editorial Board,
Sun Sentinel,
8 June 2025
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Any center of liberal and free thought from pop music to Ivy League universities is vulnerable to authoritarian impulses.—
Stephen Collinson,
CNN Money,
7 June 2025
Adjective
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The exiled poet was criticized for his arrogant attempts to influence British and American foreign policy.—
Graham Robb,
The Atlantic,
9 June 2025
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There is something dangerously, provocatively arrogant about his glorified gang leader looks.—
Timothy Crouse,
Rolling Stone,
9 June 2025
Adjective
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More than 60 years ago, my parents fled Cuba for the United States, seeking freedom from an oppressive regime that dictated what businesses produced and how products were priced.—
Carlos Cubelo,
The Orlando Sentinel,
5 June 2025
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The film follows a 40-year-old widowed nurse named Mahnaz, who is struggling with a rebellious son and other complications in a heavily oppressive patriarchal context.—
Nick Vivarelli,
Variety,
22 May 2025
Adjective
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Carrie is described as a reimagining of the story of misfit high schooler Carrie White, who has spent her life in seclusion with her domineering mother.—
Rosy Cordero,
Deadline,
2 June 2025
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Randall is a rebellious new patient at a mental institution who does battle with Louise Fletcher’s domineering head nurse Mildred Ratched.—
Andreas Wiseman,
Deadline,
20 May 2025
Adjective
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The United States' chaotic autocratic lurch under President Donald Trump—in particular, its abandonment of Europe and Ukraine in favor of closer ties to Russia—has compelled European countries to get a lot more serious about their own defense.—
Tom Rogers,
MSNBC Newsweek,
21 May 2025
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Panahi uses this set-up to explore the ripple effects of autocratic abuse on several characters who don’t know each other, but are connected by the same persecutor.—
Jordan Mintzer,
HollywoodReporter,
20 May 2025
Adjective
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Bernal as a despotic and at times deluded Magellan persuades the Spanish Crown to fund his bold 16th century expedition to the fabled lands of the East, only to unleash a decade of devastation wreaked by European conquistadors in the Pacific as part of colonial conquests.—
Etan Vlessing,
HollywoodReporter,
3 June 2025
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The Framers understood the danger of a despotic regime and regarded the criminal jury trial as a key procedural safeguard to help ensure that only those acts and individuals society deemed truly culpable result in criminal punishment.—
Mike Fox,
Chicago Tribune,
14 May 2025
Adjective
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The judiciary is the last obstacle to a president with designs on tyrannical rule.—
Sonam Sheth,
MSNBC Newsweek,
6 May 2025
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Coupled with his hateful rhetoric, threats, lies, erratic policies, trampling of the Constitution and abnormal fascination with childish superlatives, tyrannical figures and Soviet-era style military parades, there’s much to be concerned about.—
Sun Sentinel Editorial Board,
Sun Sentinel,
11 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dictatorial.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dictatorial. Accessed 15 Jun. 2025.
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