tyranny

Inherited from Middle English tirannye, from Old French tyrannie, from Medieval Latin tyrannia, tyrania, from Ancient Greek τυραννία (turannía, “tyranny”), from τύραννος (túrannos, “lord, master, sovereign, tyrant”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɪɹəni/, (obsolete) /ˈtaɪɹəni/^[1]

  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈtɪəɹəni/

  • Audio (General American):

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• Rhymes: -ɪɹəni
• Hyphenation: tyr‧an‧ny

tyranny (countable and uncountable, plural tyrannies)

1. A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power, or this system of government; especially, one that acts cruelly and unjustly.
2. The office or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler.
3. Absolute power, or its use.
4. A system of government in which power is exercised on behalf of the ruler or ruling class, without regard to the wishes of the governed.
   • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene i:

     He that with ſhepheards and a litle ſpoyle,
     Durſt in diſdaine of wrong and tyrannie,
     Defend his freedome gainſt a Monarchie:
     What will he doe ſupported by a king?

   • 2019 April 28, Hagai El-Ad, “What kind of democracy deports human rights workers?”, in Yoni Molad, transl., +972 Magazine‎^[2]:

     Control, dispossession, violence, and tyranny are not “defensive”: they are part of an organized, ongoing aggression.

5. Extreme severity or rigour.

• (government): autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, absolute monarchy, tyranthood

• (government): absolute monarchy, benevolent absolutism, enlightened absolutism, enlightened despotism

• “tyranny”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “tyranny”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “tyranny”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.

tyranny

1. alternative form of tirannye