as in dictatorship
a system of government in which the ruler has unlimited power
a popular uprising replaced that nation's tyranny with freedom and democracy
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of tyranny
What is the resistance in Russia against the tyranny of the Putin regime?
—
Literary Hub, 18 Dec. 2025
When societies forget that, their compassion fades, and tyranny finds new justifications.
—Oscar Biscet, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Dec. 2025
On the eve of America’s 250 th anniversary, Morton and Finland can remind us that now is a good time for Americans to declare independence from the tyranny of hating each other.
—William Doyle, Boston Herald, 3 Dec. 2025
The revolt of the public reverses into anarcho-tyranny.
—Big Think, 16 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tyranny
Literary Hub, 18 Dec. 2025
When societies forget that, their compassion fades, and tyranny finds new justifications.
—Oscar Biscet, MSNBC Newsweek, 10 Dec. 2025
On the eve of America’s 250 th anniversary, Morton and Finland can remind us that now is a good time for Americans to declare independence from the tyranny of hating each other.
—William Doyle, Boston Herald, 3 Dec. 2025
The revolt of the public reverses into anarcho-tyranny.
—Big Think, 16 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tyranny
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tyranny
Noun
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His socialist dictatorship, hostile to human life, crushed Venezuelans’ freedoms for years.—
Agustina Vergara Cid,
Oc Register,
7 Jan. 2026
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One of his uncles had been part of the resistance to the right-wing military dictatorship that controlled Greece between 1967 and 1974.—
Naaman Zhou,
New Yorker,
6 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Europe was collapsing under fascism.—
Philip Martin,
Washington Post,
7 Jan. 2026
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This is likewise the thrust of Salò, based on the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, an orgiastic, disturbing carnival of torture, rape, and killing, reset by Pasolini in the town from which fascism reigned in the 1940s.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The strength and powers of despotism consist wholly in the fear of resisting it.—
Ben Travers,
IndieWire,
16 Nov. 2025
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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
Noun
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The time has come to stop this slippery slope to autocracy, restoring our democracy and reaffirming the core values upon which our country was built and persevered.—
Richard Cherwitz,
Sun Sentinel,
6 Jan. 2026
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There’s a very strong correlation with the rise of autocracy and human-rights abuses and bad governance and the increase in anti-American discourse.—
Isaac Chotiner,
New Yorker,
5 Jan. 2026
Noun
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King wrote the 1982 action-adventure long before social media took over the world and, in an ironic twist, set his send-up of reality culture and totalitarianism in 2025.—
Jordan Moreau,
Variety,
6 Nov. 2025
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Taut and well-acted as this queasy little thriller can be, its unflinching tale of corporate authoritarianism is much too streamlined to reflect the emotional truth of watching totalitarianism in motion.—
David Ehrlich,
IndieWire,
28 Oct. 2025
Noun
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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
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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
Noun
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At the Claremont Institute in California, the disciples of Leo Strauss, the intellectual guru to several generations of conservatives, combine Platonic philosophy, biblical teachings, and a reverence for the American founding into a politics of ethical and religious absolutism.—
George Packer,
The Atlantic,
24 Nov. 2025
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Lyra’s quest to understand Dust brings her into confrontation with human and other worldly forces who champion moral absolutism over imagination, ignorance over knowledge, authoritarianism over free will and cold, disinterested rationality over empathy.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
17 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tyranny.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tyranny. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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