Other forms: autocracies
An autocracy is rule by one person with unlimited power. Slide into autocracy, an outright autocracy, the autocracy of the tsars.
It names the system rather than the ruler, who is the autocrat. What often separates it from a dictatorship in ordinary use is inheritance, since an autocracy is commonly a throne passed down rather than a power seized.
1nounautocracyRule by one person with unlimited power.
“The reforms were the first crack in three centuries of autocracy.”
autocracy is a system of rule.
Greek autokratia is autos, self, plus kratos, power: rule held by one person alone.
Ancient Greek
αὐτοκρατία — A system of government by one person with absolute power.
English, today
autocracy
Built from
From auto- + -cracy, from Ancient Greek αὐτοκρατία (“A system of government by one person with absolute power.”), from αὐτός (“single, self, same, alone”) + κράτος (“power”) + -ία (“feminine abstract nouns suffix”); see also Ancient Greek αὐτοκρατής (“one who governs alone”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA