dictablanda

Borrowed from Spanish dictablanda.

dictablanda (plural dictablandas)

1. (politics) A soft-handed dictatorship.

Wordplay on dictadura, reanalyzing the suffix -dura as the word dura (“hard”) and replacing it with blanda (“soft”). Compare Portuguese ditabranda.

• IPA^(key): /diɡtaˈblanda/ [d̪iɣ̞.t̪aˈβ̞lãn̪.d̪a]
• Rhymes: -anda
• Syllabification: dic‧ta‧blan‧da

dictablanda f (plural dictablandas)

1. a soft-handed dictatorship
   • 1994, Santiago Álvarez, Negrín, personalidad histórica, Ediciones de la Torre, page 54:

     […] , durante la dictablanda que sucedió a la dictatura de Primo de Rivera.

     […] , during the soft-handed dictatorship that followed Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship.

• “dictablanda”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024