tyranny

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“
Mill in contrast was not writing about legal rights, but about the moral question of whether it was ever right to curtail free speech whether by law, or by what he described as the tyranny of majority opinion, the way in which those with minority views can be sidelined or even silenced by social disapproval.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.
  2. noun The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler.
  3. noun Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly: "I have sworn . . . eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man” (Thomas Jefferson).
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Examples (50)

  • The one will therefore defend the worst tyranny, a tyranny which is ruining the people, since at the moment it embodies 'state authority,' while the other rejects even the most beneficial government as soon as it fails to satisfy his conception of 'democracy.' —  Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf: General Political Considerations Based on My Vienna Period
  • Brezinski you nailed it … both times. .any cop that goes along with this tyranny is a traitor .. —  WHAT REALLY HAPPENED
  • My only point was just that maybe the concept of tyranny existed before the English word, in the French word "tyrannie", or Latin, or Greek (where it ultimately came from). —  Conservapedia - Recent changes [en]
  • Mill in contrast was not writing about legal rights, but about the moral question of whether it was ever right to curtail free speech whether by law, or by what he described as the tyranny of majority opinion, the way in which those with minority views can be sidelined or even silenced by social disapproval. —  OUPblog
  • Just as a monarchy can be described as a tyranny, and an aristocracy can be described as a system of insularity or cruelty, so it is that the people's rule can be described as "demagogy."
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

oppression ·  despotism ·  injustice ·  corruption ·  violence ·  slavery ·  folly ·  tyrant ·  hatred ·  superstition ·  wickedness ·  domination
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English tyrannie, from Old French, from Late Latin tyrannia, from Greek turanniā, from turannos, tyrant.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Middle English tirannye, from Old French (and F.) tyrannie = Provencal tirannia = Spanish tirania = Portuguese tyrannia = Italian tirannia, from Middle Latin tyrannia, tyrania, from Greek τυραννία, τυραννις, tyranny, from τύραννος, a tyrant: see tyrant.
 

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/ˈtɪrəni/
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