Other forms: dictators
A dictator is a ruler with total power and no check on it. A brutal dictator, the dictator fell, dictatorship.
In Rome it was a legal office: a dictator was appointed for six months in an emergency and was expected to give the power back, and Caesar taking it for life is what ended the republic. The modern sense is always an accusation.
1noundictatorA ruler with total power and no check on it.
“The dictator shut down the newspapers and threw his critics into prison.”
dictator is a ruler.
Latin dictator was a magistrate appointed in emergencies, from dictare, to dictate or prescribe.
Latin
dictātor
English, today
dictator
Built from
Borrowed from Latin dictātor. From Latin dictātor (“a chief magistrate”), from dictō (“dictate, prescribe”), from dīcō (“say, speak”). by surface analysis, dictate + -or. Compare Old English tictator (“absolute ruler of the Roman Republic”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA