How to Use despotism in a Sentence

despotism

noun
Definition of despotismnext
Synonyms for despotismnext
  • Palestinians and faithful Muslims must do their own reckoning with the despotism, debauchery, and fanaticism of Hamas.
    — Doron Weber, TIME, 27 Apr. 2024
  • The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.
    — Daniel Pipes, WSJ, 26 Aug. 2018
  • In those places, people who were in despotism’s firm grip rebelled and quickly learned how firm the grip was.
    — George Will, Twin Cities, 19 Sep. 2019
  • The wise government was one that grasped the natural despotism of the human mind.
    — TIME, 31 Jan. 2024
  • But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
    — Jack Butler, National Review, 3 Nov. 2020
  • Out there — in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere — wars rage, drought crisps the land, democracy strains against despotism.
    — Alan Cowell, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2016
  • The apologists for despotism may appear to have won the battle, but not the argument.
    — Christian Caryl, New Republic, 27 Oct. 2017
  • Lenin held that Islam, like any religion, was a form of despotism, and that it had been co-opted by the ruling classes of Asia.
    — Thomas Meaney, The New Yorker, 10 May 2021
  • As with most open-source projects, the decisions regarding what gets added and changed are made through a mix of despotism and anarchy.
    — Eric Limer, Popular Mechanics, 17 Dec. 2018
  • Such a step would smack of despotism in a capital that cherishes checks on power.
    — David Von Drehle, Time, 22 June 2017
  • McMahon built this empire through, at once, vision and despotism.
    — Dan Greene, The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2023
  • There’s a paper raising the question of whether despotism is necessary to stop climate change.
    — Daniel A. Gross, The New Yorker, 25 Apr. 2021
  • What’s striking here is that the same folks who see in Mr. Trump a Mussolini in waiting are blind to the soft despotism that has already taken root in our government.
    — William McGurn, WSJ, 12 Dec. 2016
  • Castro’s hideous despotism and draconian restrictions on the Roman Catholic Church did not influence the pope’s judgment of the man or the regime.
    — Daniel J. Mahoney, National Review, 6 Feb. 2020
  • Yet the bodies that have washed up on it, almost in sight of the city’s glistening offices and hotels, are a sign of Tanzania’s sickening lurch to despotism.
    — The Economist, 17 Mar. 2018
  • Arendt’s true subject is the appeal of authoritarianism and the ease with which despotism can take hold.
    — Erin Overbey, The New Yorker, 29 Dec. 2020
  • The Romans overthrew their monarchy, established a republic, and replaced it with a despotism which was a monarchy in all but name.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 23 Dec. 2010
  • Yet this isn't the first time of judicial despotism in American history.
    — Ryan Cooper, The Week, 17 Jan. 2022
  • The lie is that the discretionary despotism of policing necessarily protects and serves the people.
    — Stuart Schrader, The New Republic, 27 May 2021
  • But increasingly, he’s charged with reining in Walt’s runaway ambition — and bearing the brunt of his despotism.
    — Charles McNultytheater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 5 Apr. 2022
  • Instead Russia exchanged one form of political oppression – the tsars – for Communism and the despotism of Stalin, the reign of terror and the gulags.
    — Anna Diamond, Smithsonian, 26 June 2018
  • The Trump administration’s policies are often tougher on the world’s despotisms than those of his predecessors were.
    — Nr Editors, National Review, 11 July 2019
  • The third resembles despotism by a cruel master or absolute monarch.
    — WIRED, 6 July 2023
  • If the world order was still to be defined by a preference for liberty and the rule of law over naked despotism, a Pax Americana was needed to supplant the Pax Britannica.
    — Cameron Hilditch, National Review, 14 Mar. 2021
  • The public position against Russian Federation in all areas is a loud cure for despotism.
    — Naman Ramachandran, Variety, 7 Mar. 2022
  • Her life is a series of insurrections against male despotism, beginning with her father’s.
    — Judith Thurman, The New Yorker, 24 Aug. 2020
  • At least the fellow travelers of the Cold War had the decency to defend despotism for ideological reasons.
    — David Harsanyi, National Review, 12 Aug. 2020
  • Fiction and poetry were Mario’s refuge from Ernesto’s domestic despotism.
    — Marcela Valdes, New York Times, 20 Feb. 2018
  • Such coalition-building sparked civilizations and launched space telescopes, but also gave us despotism, slavery and the Holocaust.
    — Richard Adams Carey, WSJ, 9 Sep. 2022
  • Then she was uprooted again after building a life for herself and starting a family, this time driven away by Castro’s despotism.
    — Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post, 1 Nov. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'despotism.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: