Synonyms for despotism
ˈdɛs pəˌtɪz əmdespo·tism

WiktionaryRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. despotismnoun

   Synonyms:
   tyranny

2. despotismnoun

   government by a singular authority, either a single person or tight-knit group, which rules with absolute power

   Synonyms:
   tyranny

Princeton's WordNetRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. absolutism, tyranny, despotismnoun

   dominance through threat of punishment and violence

   Synonyms:
   shogunate, totalism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, one-man rule, absolutism, tyranny, monocracy, totalitarianism

2. dictatorship, absolutism, authoritarianism, Caesarism, despotism, monocracy, one-man rule, shogunate, Stalinism, totalitarianism, tyrannynoun

   a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)

   Synonyms:
   shogunate, totalism, dictatorship, authoritarianism, one-man rule, tyranny, absolutism, monocracy, totalitarianism

Matched Categories

1. • Autocracy
   • Dominance

Dictionary of English SynonymesRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. despotismnoun

   Synonyms:
   autocracy, absolutism, dictatorship, tyranny, absolute power, arbitrary rule

Synonyms, Antonyms & Associated WordsRate these synonyms:0.0 / 0 votes

1. despotismnoun

   Synonyms:
   absolutism, autocracy, tyranny

PPDB, the paraphrase databaseRate these paraphrases:0.0 / 0 votes

1. List of paraphrases for "despotism":

   high-handedness, arbitrariness, tyranny, authoritarianism

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How to use despotism in a sentence?

1. Joseph Addison:

   Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate,no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament.It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

2. Herbert Spencer:

   If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making

3. Michel Foucault:

   Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.

4. Fisher Ames:

   ...[O]ur sages in the great [constitutional] convention... intended our government should be a republic which differs more widely from a democracy than a democracy from a despotism. The rigours of a despotism often... oppress only a few, but it is the very essence and nature of a democracy, for a faction claiming to oppress a minority, and that minority the chief owners of the property and truest lovers of their country.

5. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel:

   The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.