Synonyms of dictatorship

dictatorship

noun

dik-ˈtā-tər-ˌship 

as in tyranny

a system of government in which the ruler has unlimited power

a revolution that only ended up replacing one dictatorship with another

Synonyms & Similar Words

• tyranny
• fascism
• autocracy
• despotism
• totalitarianism
• authoritarianism
• absolutism
• monarchy
• autarchy
• Caesarism
• totalism
• oppression
• Communism
• czarism
• Nazism
• domination
• monarchism
• monocracy
• Big Brother
• Big Brotherism

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• democracy
• freedom
• self-government
• self-rule
• self-governance
• autonomy
• sovereignty
• self-determination

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of dictatorship

Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas, and its history of dictatorship, political upheaval and foreign intervention has long stymied the consolidation of democratic rule. — ABC News, 28 Sep. 2026

The United Kingdom has controlled the Falklands since 1833, and fought a brief war over the islands in the early 1980s after the Argentine military dictatorship attempted to seize the territory by force. — Adrienne Vogt, CNN Money, 23 Sep. 2026

Here, Americans want to live in a democracy, not a dictatorship. — S.e. Cupp, New York Daily News, 23 Sep. 2026

Pérez was particularly upset that the police had come to arrest the two men in a white van with tinted windows—a symbol of the dictatorship, which used such vehicles to disappear its victims—and that the government had not stopped this. — Will Freeman, The Atlantic, 20 Sep. 2026