What's the difference between dictatorial and overbearing?

Dictatorial


Definition:

  • (a.) Pertaining or suited to a dictator; absolute.
  • (a.) Characteristic of a dictator; imperious; dogmatical; overbearing; as, a dictatorial tone or manner.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But concerns about a slowing economy, jobs, civil rights and a lack of progress in the Kurdish peace process appear to have combined with worries that Erdoğan could assume quasi-dictatorial powers to thwart the president’s ambitions.
  • (2) Even if the move seemed dictatorial in the short term, it served to enshrine a constitution that in the long-term actually curtails Morsi's power – which to the Brotherhood makes his actions well-intentioned, if clumsy.
  • (3) Supporters of the accused men say their alleged crimes were trumped up by a dictatorial regime which feigned openness during the electoral campaign only to brutally suppress dissent when it saw the scale of public anger.
  • (4) It was a tragedy suffered by those trapped in a totalitarian and dictatorial system with no jangmadang to turn to.
  • (5) But to shape the future we need to understand the past.” One might expect that those words were aimed at Peter Thiel, the Facebook board member who has bucked Silicon Valley political orthodoxy by backing Donald Trump’s xenophobic, Islamophobic, sexist, anti-science, and increasingly dictatorial campaign for president.
  • (6) But the economic success story couldn’t mask the accusations that he was totalitarian and dictatorial – that he, however he could, crushed any political opposition, inside his party and out.
  • (7) I want to make it very clear that I will never rule this country without your mandate and I will never cheat.” The Gambia is one of Africa’s smallest and least important countries, so its unexpected shift to democracy will not bring political or economic pressure to bear on dictatorial neighbours or more distant nations.
  • (8) And to help promote this thoroughly anti-democratic measure, the junta has enlisted the judiciary, sullying the very bedrock of democracy.” The prospect of Prayuth’s dictatorial rule being extended indefinitely is not one that is welcomed in Washington.
  • (9) George Soros's Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa warns that Malawi is heading towards an "authoritarian era" under the "dictatorial whims of one man".
  • (10) Machar accused his rival of "dictatorial tendencies" and said that members of his Nuer community were being targeted.
  • (11) But it’s not that I believe those numbers should be dictatorial – we need to have an open discussion.
  • (12) Viewed in this context, the raiding of NGO offices in Egypt on Thursday is not especially surprising – though, of course, one of the main goals of the revolution was to put an end to such dictatorial practices, and the raiding of 17 NGOs in a single day was unprecedented, even during the Mubarak years.
  • (13) Man jailed for 30 years in Thailand for insulting the monarchy on Facebook Read more The ruling regime – the National Council for Peace and Order led by prime minister general Prayut Chan-ocha – took power in a coup d’état and promised to restore democracy within a year, but instead “exercised increasingly dictatorial power and continued to systematically repress fundamental rights and freedoms”.
  • (14) The leader of Karachi’s dominant political party has been accused by a respected former mayor of being an Indian agent and a dictatorial drunkard who has mismanaged the affairs of Pakistan’s biggest city from his base in north London.
  • (15) But his controlling personality meant some commanders deserted, and his dictatorial leadership prompted the breakaway Ansaru faction, according to a senior security official.
  • (16) But it is not economics, nor even his alleged dictatorial tendencies, that makes Modi such a polarising figure.
  • (17) "The conclusion is inescapable that the South African troops were deployed to defend the faltering and dictatorial Bozizé regime."
  • (18) They were the elite cadre of female bodyguards who surrounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi for more than 20 years, becoming almost synonymous with his idiosyncratic dictatorial rule.
  • (19) While the conflict in that country is driven by multiple factors – a dictatorial regime, regional spillovers of extremism, an international community that has shifted between vacillation and interference – there is no doubt that the level of violence in that country is a direct result of decades of arms transfers to the region.
  • (20) They see it as part of the president’s attempt to acquire quasi-dictatorial powers at the expense of parliament and representative democracy.

Overbearing


Definition:

  • (a.) Overpowering; subduing; repressing.
  • (a.) Aggressively haughty; arrogant; domineering; tyrannical; dictatorial; insolent.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Her childhood - split between a boisterous outdoorsiness and an intense inner life - was dominated by her overbearing mother, with whom she fought "steadily but reluctantly" until her death.
  • (2) "[In the] last farm bill debate in 2008, Rep Earl Blumenauer heroically tried to force a vote on food aid reform, but was quashed by an overbearing rules committee, which wouldn't permit him to offer the amendment.
  • (3) The ditziness, the choice between the good man and the bad boy (Darcy and Cleaver), the overbearing parents all seemed infantilising.
  • (4) But the British institutions can still provide obstacles to overbearing Prime Ministers.
  • (5) It's about a child star and his overbearing parents and his agent and the studio, lawyers, therapists, everything.
  • (6) "Transplanting the Pirates Of The Caribbean aesthetic to the Wild Wild West proves disastrous in The Lone Ranger, an indigestible swill of forced humour and oversized, overbearing action sequences," he writes.
  • (7) "The state remains as bloated, overbearing and inefficient as ever.
  • (8) The heroic supposition appears to be that an overbearing state is somehow suppressing entrepreneurial spirit in areas such as the north-east, and that private enterprise will naturally burst forth once the public sector is cut down to size.
  • (9) The atmosphere inside the grounds has been good, even if Fifa's corporatism can be overbearing.
  • (10) Scotland would be a counterweight to London's huge, overbearing influence over the British economy.
  • (11) He never got on with his overbearing mother, Rosalind, but idealised his father Edward, who, as captain of the former passenger steamer Rawalpindi, had gone down with his ship and 263 men after the attack by the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst in November 1939.
  • (12) The alternative is that they'll be exactly like their online personas – overbearing and needy and desperate to react to everything with a tedious one-liner.
  • (13) Overbearing, ostentatious, and incongruous, don't you think?"
  • (14) To the authorities in Zug and Zurich, Rich was a victim of an overbearing US prosecutorial system - a system that had overreached itself in trying to have him extradited from Switzerland.
  • (15) Lyrically it is a bit overbearing, and there’s no mention of food or vodka, which is a bit strange.
  • (16) He wants recognition and respect from the international community, just as he wanted it (and probably did not get it) from his overbearing father and dysfunctional mafia family.
  • (17) Part of Manning's motivation, the defence has argued, was that he believed the US government to be overbearingly secretive, but again the prosecutors contend that is irrelevant to the question of his guilt or innocence.
  • (18) I found Mr Mitchell’s tone overbearing, but he did not swear at us.
  • (19) McKillop tried to defend his own tenure on the board, insisting Goodwin had not been overbearing and that the ABN deal was agreed by the entire board.
  • (20) In Out Of Place (1999), the memoir of his childhood and youth, Said described his father, who called himself William to emphasise his adopted American identity, as overbearing and uncommunicative.