authoritarian

UK/ɔːˌθɒɹ.ɪˈtɛə̯.ɹɪən/US/əˌθɔɹ.əˈtɛɹ.i.ən/

adjectiveB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #14,344 of 15,258leans written

Authoritarian means demanding obedience and allowing little dissent. An authoritarian regime, an authoritarian father, authoritarian rule.

It is used of governments and of parenting alike. Political scientists separate it from totalitarian: an authoritarian state wants obedience and leaves private life mostly alone, while a totalitarian one wants belief and reaches everywhere.

Definitions of authoritarian

1adjectiveauthoritarianDemanding obedience and allowing little dissent.B2+
“Under the authoritarian government, newspapers could not criticise the president.”

authoritarian is a quality of rule.

Where it comes from

Middle English
auctorite
English
authority
English, today
authoritarian

Built from

autorite · Middle English — authority, book or quotation that settles an argument
auctōritās · Latin — invention, advice, opinion, influence, command
auctor · Latin — master, leader, author

From authority + -arian. circa 1880. authority comes from Middle English auctorite. From Middle English auctorite, autorite (“authority, book or quotation that settles an argument”), from Old French auctorité, from Latin - stem of auctōritās (“invention, advice, opinion, influence, command”), from auctor (“master, leader, author”). For the presence of the h, compare the etymology of author.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Politics & Society

Practise this word

authoritarian in the wild

During the early 21st century, democratic governments outnumbered authoritarian states by 98 to 80.
Dictatorship
By 2019, the number of authoritarian governments had again surmounted that of democracies by 92 to 87.
Dictatorship
In common parlance, the term can have a pejorative valence, referring to authoritarian or unjust governments.
Regime
Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil liberties.
Anti-authoritarianism
Since 1946, the share of authoritarian states in the international political system increased until the mid-1970s but declined from then until 2000.
Authoritarianism

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the auctor family

authority author

authoritarian — used about once every 54,060 pages · #14,344 · point at the bar for the others

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