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
As previously announced, Andrew Garfield stars as the legendary leader of a ferocious rebellion against the tyranny of King Richard II.
—
Matt Grobar, Deadline, 13 Oct. 2025
How can merit become a kind of tyranny?
—Belinda Luscombe, Time, 13 Oct. 2025
So he was presented as someone who was writing about censorship, repression, tyranny and restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
—Pamela Avila, USA Today, 10 Oct. 2025
The new Constitution’s supporters, known as Federalists, faced fierce opposition from Anti-Federalists who charged that a powerful national government, unrestrained by a bill of rights, would inevitably lead to tyranny.
—Donald Nieman, The Conversation, 7 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tyranny
Matt Grobar, Deadline, 13 Oct. 2025
How can merit become a kind of tyranny?
—Belinda Luscombe, Time, 13 Oct. 2025
So he was presented as someone who was writing about censorship, repression, tyranny and restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of thought.
—Pamela Avila, USA Today, 10 Oct. 2025
The new Constitution’s supporters, known as Federalists, faced fierce opposition from Anti-Federalists who charged that a powerful national government, unrestrained by a bill of rights, would inevitably lead to tyranny.
—Donald Nieman, The Conversation, 7 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for tyranny
Recent Examples of Synonyms for tyranny
Noun
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The forest for the trees Nestled between China, India and Thailand, Myanmar gained independence from Britain in 1948 but came under military dictatorship in 1962.—
Miami Herald,
Miami Herald,
7 Nov. 2025
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Both lived under dictatorships.—
Elizabeth B. Kim,
Cincinnati Enquirer,
7 Nov. 2025
Noun
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No World Cup has been less about the self-aggrandizement of the hosts and yet no World Cup has ever been so overtly political as the 1938 tournament, as exiles from Germany and Italy took the opportunity to make very public their opposition to fascism.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 Nov. 2025
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Swept up in the cinema-making of Italy’s auteurs, Nicholas finds himself on the sets of Fellini’s Casanova and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, a harrowing film about the death throes and reincarnations of fascism made just before the director’s murder.—
Jasmine Vojdani,
Vulture,
4 Nov. 2025
Noun
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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
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In recent months, as despotism intensified an increasing number of writers, scholars, and thinkers were declared foreign agents, and their books were taken off the shelves.—
Nina Khrushcheva,
Time,
3 Oct. 2025
Noun
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China must learn to respect the will of the people—starting with Chinese people's will to be free from autocracy.—
Micah McCartney,
MSNBC Newsweek,
5 Nov. 2025
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Motherland combines history with family memoir, offering a fresh female view of Russia’s path to neo-Soviet autocracy under Putin.—
Air Mail,
Air Mail,
1 Nov. 2025
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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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
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As Perez wrote, Musk’s free-speech absolutism was a fiction perpetuated by a pliant media.—
Jacob Silverman,
MSNBC Newsweek,
1 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Tyranny.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tyranny. Accessed 14 Nov. 2025.
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