(n.) A master; a lord; especially, an absolute or irresponsible ruler or sovereign.
(n.) One who rules regardless of a constitution or laws; a tyrant.
Example Sentences:
(1) Right now, with Kabila already 10 years in power and looking immovable, despotism seems to have democracy on the ropes.
(2) All the while, a long list of corrupt and venal despots turned their rule into virtual kleptocracies and stole their children's futures.
(3) One is the stubborn mystery of how a giant of its liberation movements, an intellectual who showed forgiveness and magnanimity years before Mandela emerged from jail, could turn into the living caricature of despotism.
(4) If it fails to do so, it will rightly stand accused of placing a higher value on its alliance with murderous despots than the security of its own people.
(5) To crush any residual affinity for the monarchy, British propaganda against Thibaw “went into high gear”, said Thant Mtint-U, painting the monarch as an ogre, despot and drunkard.
(6) It took Harry Guy Bartholomew, first editorial director and then chairman after Rothermere unloaded his shares, to run the business on despotic lines and, with a mixture of flair and vindictive thuggery, create one of the great popular newspapers.
(7) The Red Army attacked despotic gentry and evil landlords, people who exploited our country and exploited individuals," she says, recalling her reasons for joining.
(8) The tabloid conclusion is that the North's leaders are crazed – Kim Jong-un is a "deranged despot", the Sun wrote on Friday – while the Team America version is that they are idiotic.
(9) Its words are an attack on tyrants and despots, and a call for liberty.
(10) Even though the event was celebrating victory over fascism, some of the world’s most notorious despots were in attendance, including Uzbekistan’s Islam Karimov, Turkmenistan’s Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.
(11) "We couldn't believe our eyes," grinned Shamad, recalling the sight of Tunisia's ousted despot, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, fleeing a land he had ruled for 23 years.
(12) When it comes, the fall of a famous despot sends a shiver that is felt across the world.
(13) Jacobs checked Moses's mad worship of the car and his despotic excesses.
(14) In 1989, according to the Washington Post , he was hired to massage the image of the despot Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) for $1m a year.
(15) Responding to suggestions by pro-coup pundits that he should be more statesman-like, he was adamant: “I won’t change my personality, because I am a person with multiple personalities.” As with other interesting despots, none of this affects his ability to wield absolute power.
(16) What of the jobs that we’re told would be endangered if we adopted the exotic policy of not selling arms to despots?
(17) As Assange noted drily: "It's nicer, particularly given the frequency of equatorial despotism, to be tortured in the computer room."
(18) In an age of infinite European promise - summed up by the annus mirabilis of 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell and the countries of eastern Europe and former Yugoslavia freed themselves from Soviet-style despotism - Slobodan Milosevic, who has died aged 64, was the wild card.
(19) In championing the oppressed, deterring aggression, curbing the excesses of despots, challenging the victimisation of scapegoats, tackling poverty or preventing genocide, the international community still has a long way to go.
(20) Pogrund and cameraman Dewald Aukema pick up not only the whirlwind nature of that first head-of-state visit, but the exotic and breathtaking beauty of Africa and Mandela's buttoned lip as he visits the lavish basilicas built by despots on the land of the poor.