Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Despotism
/ˈdɛspətɪzəm/noun
Government by a ruler with absolute power and no accountability.
The Greek roots
δεσπότης
despótēs
master of the house
Literally: “house-master rule”
Follow a root:δεσπότης2 words
The story of the word
A despotēs was the master of a household, with slaves rather than citizens under him, and that domestic contrast is the whole insult: a despot treats a state the way a man treats his own kitchen. Byzantine emperors later wore Despot as an honorific, and Greek liturgy still addresses God as Despota. Montesquieu made despotisme a formal category of government in 1748, and the word has been unusable as a compliment since.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Medieval Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
despotdespotic
In a sentence
Reform arrived slowly, and only where despotism had grown too expensive to maintain.