as in tyranny
a system of government in which the ruler has unlimited power
a revolution that only ended up replacing one dictatorship with another
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Recent Examples of dictatorship
The politics of an insular, religious dictatorship are never more than glancingly suggested.
—
Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
The lead, a mild-mannered housewife and mother of five (well-deserved lead actress nominee Fernanda Torres), looks fragile but uses her particular set of skills — dignity, warmth, presentation — to strike back in ways the dictatorship doesn’t know how to parry.
—Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 24 Jan. 2025
And ultimately, South Koreans may decide the time has come to revise the constitution, written in 1948 under U.S. military occupation and last revised in 1987 under military dictatorship.
—John Delury, Foreign Affairs, 27 Jan. 2025
Molina, a gay hairdresser convicted of public indecency during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship, has been sent to the political wing of a prison and put in the same cell as Valentin Arregui (a solid, if unremarkable Diego Luna), an intense and serious-minded Marxist revolutionary.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 27 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for dictatorship 
Jesse Green, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
The lead, a mild-mannered housewife and mother of five (well-deserved lead actress nominee Fernanda Torres), looks fragile but uses her particular set of skills — dignity, warmth, presentation — to strike back in ways the dictatorship doesn’t know how to parry.
—Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 24 Jan. 2025
And ultimately, South Koreans may decide the time has come to revise the constitution, written in 1948 under U.S. military occupation and last revised in 1987 under military dictatorship.
—John Delury, Foreign Affairs, 27 Jan. 2025
Molina, a gay hairdresser convicted of public indecency during Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship, has been sent to the political wing of a prison and put in the same cell as Valentin Arregui (a solid, if unremarkable Diego Luna), an intense and serious-minded Marxist revolutionary.
—Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 27 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for dictatorship
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dictatorship
Noun
-
After half a century of tyranny, the Assad family’s rule over Syria has come to an end.—
Fawaz A. Gerges,
Foreign Affairs,
27 Jan. 2025
-
The tyranny of an unscaleable beauty hierarchy will forever be the inspired stuff of great horror moviemaking.—
Ryan Lattanzio,
IndieWire,
24 Jan. 2025
Noun
-
Did defeating the Nazis spur the Allies to a golden age of justice or rid the world of fascism?—
Richard Brody,
The New Yorker,
5 Feb. 2025
-
The movement, which has gained traction on social media, brands itself as a fight against fascism.—
Hannah Parry,
Newsweek,
5 Feb. 2025
Noun
-
When a leader sets legislators on the sidelines, as Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did during the COVID pandemic and Trump is doing now, republican governing gives way to autocracy.—
Nolan Finley,
The Mercury News,
28 Jan. 2025
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Trump’s transactional and pragmatic engagement with adversaries may do more to tame geopolitical rivalry than Biden’s view of a globe defined by a clash between democracy and autocracy.—
Charles A. Kupchan,
The Atlantic,
10 Jan. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Dictatorship.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dictatorship. Accessed 16 Feb. 2025.
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