totalitarians

noun

plural of totalitarian
as in authoritarians

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for totalitarians
  1. authoritarians
  2. autocrats
  3. potentates
  4. tyrants
  5. dictators
  6. despots
  7. oppressors
Noun
  • Not your grandma’s authoritarians Today’s authoritarian rulers realize that civil society has the potential to support democracy and pry loose their grip on power.
    — Christopher Justin Einolf, The Conversation, 26 Sep. 2025
Definition of authoritarians
Noun
  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has responded defiantly, saying Trump has an affinity for autocrats.
    — Prashant Rao, semafor.com, 20 Oct. 2026
  • These innovations may reduce the number of bureaucrats autocrats need.
    — Seva Gunitsky, Foreign Affairs, 1 Oct. 2026
Definition of autocrats
Noun
  • With 775 rooms, the palace also provides office space for the royal bureaucracy and hosts lavish state dinners for visiting presidents and potentates.
    — CBS News, CBS News, 26 June 2026
  • Biden put this sentiment into action by working with Netanyahu despite serious moral and political failures in Gaza, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on NATO expansion, and with Gulf potentates on the region’s security architecture.
    — James Jeffrey, Foreign Affairs, 13 Nov. 2025
Definition of potentates
Noun
  • Because, after all, as in all of Haber’s novels, the point is not really what is happening in the world but what is happening in the mind—in this case the mind of the pettiest of tyrants.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 1 July 2026
  • Aegon, dragged out of King’s Landing by spymaster Lord Larys Strong (Matthew Needham) in an effort to save him from the fratricidal Aemond, gets an up-close look at the petty tyrants who have sprouted up in the countryside thanks to his impetuous rule.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 18 June 2026
Definition of tyrants
Noun
  • No matter how powerful, dictators have always needed subordinates—censors, propagandists, security guards, police officers, intelligence analysts, and local bureaucrats—to carry out their orders.
    — Seva Gunitsky, Foreign Affairs, 1 Oct. 2026
  • For years, America’s conversation about the Middle East revolved around terrorism, stability, and the supposedly binary choice between friendly dictators and dangerous Islamists.
    — Ayman M. Mohyeldin, Vanity Fair, 11 Sep. 2026
Definition of dictators
Noun
  • Upending global trade, plucking a dictator out of Caracas, escalating to full-on war with Iran, shredding alliances, courting despots — the major twists and turns of this administration never end.
    — Kate Andrews, Washington Post, 17 Oct. 2026
  • In this telling, Ivan appears as a precursor to Stalin and other ruinous Russian despots.
    — Foreign Affairs, Foreign Affairs, 18 Aug. 2026
Definition of despots
Noun
  • These included quotes by Fanon, a philosopher who wrote extensively about the ways in which colonized people adopt the mindsets of their oppressors.
    — Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 20 Oct. 2026
  • Can an accurate story of a system of oppression be derived from sources created and preserved by the oppressors?
    — Drew Gilpin Faust, The New York Review of Books, 19 Sep. 2026
Definition of oppressors
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.

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totalitarianism
totalitarians
totalities
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Cite this Entry

“Totalitarians.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/totalitarians. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

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