as in oppressive
controlling the people of a country in a very strict way with complete power that cannot be opposed
A totalitarian state that did not even allow outsiders to visit.
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Dissimilar Words
as in authoritarian
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of totalitarian
Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2022
But that would not address the fundamental goal of the protests: to end the totalitarian stranglehold that has subjected the Cubans to an unbearable serfdom.
—Néstor T. Carbonell, National Review, 16 July 2021
Walter E Block, Oc Register, 21 July 2025
The series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States, where women are brutally subjugated.
—Kairi Lowery, The Orlando Sentinel, 14 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for totalitarian
Adjective
But, ten years later, his embrace of near-totalitarian control bears the deep imprint of his most personal beliefs about force, weakness, faith, and order.
—Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 23 Oct. 2022
But that would not address the fundamental goal of the protests: to end the totalitarian stranglehold that has subjected the Cubans to an unbearable serfdom.
—Néstor T. Carbonell, National Review, 16 July 2021
Noun
Most totalitarian countries have an official news source.
—Walter E Block, Oc Register, 21 July 2025
The series is set in Gilead, a totalitarian society in what used to be part of the United States, where women are brutally subjugated.
—Kairi Lowery, The Orlando Sentinel, 14 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for totalitarian
Recent Examples of Synonyms for totalitarian
Adjective
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What was mostly missing was the occasional cool front that pushes out the most oppressive heat and humidity.—
Staff And Wire Reports,
Boston Herald,
10 Aug. 2025
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Driving in Palm Beach County — home to Mar-a-Lago — the windows are up, and the AC is blasting to counter the oppressive heat and humidity outside.—
David Culver,
CNN Money,
10 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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The interim government, formed shortly afterward under the leadership of Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, was widely hailed as a new chapter for Bangladesh: a chance to repair years of authoritarian rule, enforced disappearances, corruption and human rights abuses.—
Shamim Chowdhury,
NPR,
5 Aug. 2025
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To level set: The North Korean IT worker scheme is a vast conspiracy to evade punishing financial sanctions on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the result of authoritarian ruler Kim Jong Un’s human-rights abuses and relentless quest to develop weapons of mass destruction.—
Amanda Gerut,
Fortune,
4 Aug. 2025
Noun
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Why don’t all the rich potentates, sheiks, oligarchs and MAGA dictators meet and fix it?—
Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Tribune,
25 June 2025
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With the pandemic, the year-round population of a once-seasonal resort town swelled with Manhattan refugees, those in the Trump orbit, and tech and finance potentates, many of them serious collectors like Ken Griffin and Steve Ross.—
Ben Widdicombe,
Vulture,
12 May 2025
Noun
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Make this a contest between fast new trains and an aging autocrat, and California wins.—
Joe Mathews,
Mercury News,
2 Aug. 2025
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That lag time has been criticized across Europe, with officials and experts asking why Trump is giving additional time to an autocrat who has hardly wavered in his desire to subjugate Ukraine.—
Alexander Smith,
NBC news,
15 July 2025
Noun
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So, this is all an opportunity for Donald Trump to play dictator in Washington, D.C.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
17 Aug. 2025
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This perception stems largely from the grip of the country’s dictator, Alexander Lukashenko.—
SVIATLANA TSIKHANOUSKAYA,
Foreign Affairs,
8 Aug. 2025
Noun
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President Trump is, once again, testing the limits of his power, hoping to intimidate other cities into submission to his every vengeful whim by making the once unimaginable—an American tyrant ordering a military occupation of our own capital—a terrifying reality.—
Michael Gfoeller And David H. Rundell,
MSNBC Newsweek,
13 Aug. 2025
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Jack Nicholson’s McMurphy, a swaggering trickster figure, clashes with the institution’s quiet tyrant, Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), in a battle not just of wills, but of worldviews: chaos versus order, freedom versus conformity.—
Samantha Bergeson,
IndieWire,
29 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Totalitarian.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/totalitarian. Accessed 21 Aug. 2025.
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