tyranny

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tyr·an·ny

(tĭr′ə-nē)

n. pl. tyr·an·nies

1. Unjust or oppressive governmental power: "He tended to see the Crown as the benign center of the empire and Parliament as the malevolent source of tyranny" (Gordon S. Wood).

2. A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power: people liberated from a brutal tyranny.

3. The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler: Pisistratus held the tyranny of Athens.

a. The oppressive or unjust use of power: parental tyranny.

b. A tyrannical act: refused to submit to her husband's tyrannies.

5. An oppressive or harshly limiting condition: the tyranny of social expectations.

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

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

tyranny

(ˈtɪrənɪ)

n, pl -nies

1. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy)

a. government by a tyrant or tyrants; despotism

b. similarly oppressive and unjust government by more than one person

2. arbitrary, unreasonable, or despotic behaviour or use of authority: the teacher's tyranny.

3. any harsh discipline or oppression: the tyranny of the clock.

4. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a political unit ruled by a tyrant

5. (Historical Terms) (esp in ancient Greece) government by a usurper

6. a tyrannical act

[C14: from Old French tyrannie, from Medieval Latin tyrannia, from Latin tyrannus tyrant]

ˈtyrannous adj

ˈtyrannously adv

ˈtyrannousness n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

tyr•an•ny

(ˈtɪr ə ni)

n., pl. -nies.

1. arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority.

2. the government or rule of a tyrant.

3. a state ruled by a tyrant.

4. oppressive or unjust government.

5. undue severity or harshness.

6. a tyrannical act.

[1325–75; < Old French < Medieval Latin tyrannia= Latin tyrann(us) tyrant + -ia -y³]

tyranny

A form of government in which a single ruler holds absolute power.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun	1.	tyranny - a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.) dictatorship, monocracy, one-man rule, shogunate, Stalinism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, Caesarism, despotism, absolutism autocracy, autarchy - a political system governed by a single individual police state - a country that maintains repressive control over the people by means of police (especially secret police)
	2.	tyranny - dominance through threat of punishment and violence absolutism, despotism ascendance, ascendancy, ascendence, ascendency, dominance, control - the state that exists when one person or group has power over another; "her apparent dominance of her husband was really her attempt to make him pay attention to her"

tyranny

noun oppression, cruelty, dictatorship, authoritarianism, reign of terror, despotism, autocracy, absolutism, coercion, high-handedness, harsh discipline, unreasonableness, imperiousness, peremptoriness I'm the sole victim of her tyranny.
understanding, democracy, ease, mercy, relaxation, tolerance, leniency, laxity, liberality

Quotations
"Tyranny is always better organised than freedom" [Charles Péguy Basic Verities]

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

tyranny

noun

1. A government in which a single leader or party exercises absolute control over all citizens and every aspect of their lives:

absolutism, autarchy, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, monocracy.

2. Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly:

autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism.

Translations

حُكْم الطُّغْيان، حُكْم إسْتِبدادي

tyranie

tyranni

Tyrannei

τυραννία

türannia

tyrannie

tiranija

zsarnokság

harîstjórn

tirannide tirannia tirannico tiranno tiranneggiare

тирания

tyrania

tiranijaтиранија

zulüm

暴政

tyranny

[ˈtɪrənɪ] N (lit, fig) → tiranía f

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

tyranny

[ˈtɪrəni] n → tyrannie f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

tyranny

n (lit, fig) → Tyrannei f, → Tyrannenherrschaft f; he ruled by tyranny → er führte eine Tyrannenherrschaft

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

tyranny

[ˈtɪrənɪ] n → tirannia

tyrant

(ˈtairənt) noun

a cruel and unjust ruler. The people suffered under foreign tyrants.

tyrannical (tiˈrӕnikəl) adjective , tyrannous (ˈtirənəs)

of or like a tyrant. a tyrannical ruler; His actions were tyrannous.

tyˈrannically, ˈtyrannously adverb

tyrannize, tyrannise (ˈti-) verb

to rule or treat (a person or people) cruelly and unjustly. He tyrannizes his family.

ˈtyranny (ˈti-) noun

an action, or the method of ruling, of a tyrant. People will always resist tyranny.

References in classic literature ?

Last of all comes the most beautiful of all, man and State alike, tyranny and the tyrant; these we have now to consider.

Say then, my friend, in what manner does tyranny arise?--that it has a democratic origin is evident.

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In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine, Like Harmodius, the gallant and good, When he made at the tutelar shrine A libation of Tyranny's blood.

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It has also been doubted what was and what was not the act of the city; as, for instance, when a democracy arises out of an aristocracy or a tyranny; for some persons then refuse to fulfil their contracts; as if the right to receive the money was in the tyrant and not in the state, and many other things of the same nature; as if any covenant was founded for violence and not for the common good.

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"My children," said the Oldest and Wisest Ape in All the World, when he had heard the Deputation, "you did right in ridding yourselves of tyranny, but your tribe is not sufficiently advanced to dispense with the forms of monarchy.

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The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

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A more complete imagination than Philip's might have pictured a youth of splendid hope, for he must have been entering upon manhood in 1848 when kings, remembering their brother of France, went about with an uneasy crick in their necks; and perhaps that passion for liberty which passed through Europe, sweeping before it what of absolutism and tyranny had reared its head during the reaction from the revolution of 1789, filled no breast with a hotter fire.

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The Earl Of Cassilis' Tyranny against a quick (i.e.

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Some of the cities fell under the tyranny of Macedonian garrisons; others under that of usurpers springing out of their own confusions.

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The administration of Sir Edmund Andros lacked scarcely a single characteristic of tyranny: a Governor and Council, holding office from the King, and wholly independent of the country; laws made and taxes levied without concurrence of the people immediate or by their representatives; the rights of private citizens violated, and the titles of all landed property declared void; the voice of complaint stifled by restrictions on the press; and, finally, disaffection overawed by the first band of mercenary troops that ever marched on our free soil.

View in context

I am no storyteller, and love as it is cannot be portrayed in a literature dominated and enthralled by the debasing tyranny which "sentences letters" in the name of the Young Girl.

View in context

They dispose kings to tyranny, husbands to jealousy, wise men to irresolution and melancholy.