What's the difference between despot and ruler?

Despot


Definition:

  • (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.

Ruler


Definition:

  • (n.) One who rules; one who exercises sway or authority; a governor.
  • (n.) A straight or curved strip of wood, metal, etc., with a smooth edge, used for guiding a pen or pencil in drawing lines. Cf. Rule, n., 7 (a).

Example Sentences:

  • (1) In his notorious 1835 Minute on Education , Lord Macaulay articulated the classic reason for teaching English, but only to a small minority of Indians: “We must do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indians in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and in intellect.” The language was taught to a few to serve as intermediaries between the rulers and the ruled.
  • (2) After violence had run its bloody course, the country’s rulers conceded it had been a catastrophe that had brought nothing but “grave disorder, damage and retrogression”.
  • (3) A modification of a previously described curved ruler, the current model has a hinge for greater ease of maneuverability and a "T" piece on one end to facilitate measurement and marking of both poles of the muscle without repositioning the ruler.
  • (4) Fail, and the nation’s rulers face embarrassment in front of a television audience of more than a billion.
  • (5) The former military ruler won the key prize of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, but at one point his lead was cut to 500,000 votes after landslide victories for Jonathan in his southern Delta homeland.
  • (6) The ruler is especially helpful when one is doing large recessions and posterior fixation of the recti muscles (Faden operation).
  • (7) While Egypt's military rulers were quick to blame football hooliganism, a group of hardline Al Ahly fans, known as ultras, accused the police of intentionally letting rivals attack them because of their historic antipathy to the security forces and their role at the forefront of anti-Mubarak protests a year ago.
  • (8) What was it that so alarmed Brazil's military rulers, and why, 40 years on, does Tropicália still inspire as well as provoke?
  • (9) Throughout ancient Egyptian history, rulers changed capitals to enforce a sense of national renewal or unity – a trend that began with the first purpose-built capital of a united Egypt , some 5,000 years ago.
  • (10) This civilisation was later cross-fertilised by new influences brought by the Kushans who succeeded the Bactrian Greeks as rulers of Afghanistan, while adopting much of their culture.
  • (11) But the SNP has plenty to learn from the home rulers at Westminster.
  • (12) The one thing romantics have to remember is that though you might well try to stop your daughter getting mixed up with one, there is no necessary connection between being a good ruler and being a loving and faithful mate.
  • (13) Using the technique and the ruler described by Schei et al., the radiographic height of the alveolar crest from the cemento-enamel junction was determined.
  • (14) Quantitative analysis of the density data is consistent with the presence of up to six strands of a protein molecule in the central channel that could serve as the template or ruler structure that determines the length of the bacteriophage tail and that could be injected into the cell with the phage DNA.
  • (15) Meles Zenawi , the cerebral ruler of Ethiopia for the last 21 years, is a man with many reputations.
  • (16) In that same 2010 fundraiser speech, Perry described his mission as "bigger than any law or policy," of being engaged in a struggle not of "flesh and blood," but "against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms".
  • (17) Abdul Halim, who was installed as ruler of his state in 1958, has been described by his family as a caring leader and a fan of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Nat King Cole.
  • (18) A poor citizen can’t even find one kilogramme of rice on the street,” he said, arguing that the country’s rulers would face divine judgment for what they were doing to the poor.
  • (19) Diplomatic tensions also intensified with Bahrain recalling its ambassador to Tehran, following the Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar's warning on Monday that Bahrain's rulers and the Gulf states who have sent troops to the kingdom needed to act with "wisdom and caution".
  • (20) Mugabe’s officials have repeatedly accused the US of seeking regime change, a common charge levelled by rulers across the continent.