Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Kleptocracy
/klɛpˈtɒkrəsi/noun
A government whose leaders use their office primarily to steal from the state they run.
The Greek roots
κλέπτης
kléptēs
thief
κράτος
krátos
power, rule
Literally: “rule by thieves”
The story of the word
Unlike ochlocracy, this is a modern English formation on ancient parts, first used in the nineteenth century and revived hard during the Cold War for regimes that exported their national accounts to Swiss banks. The same κλέπτ- root gives kleptomania, coined for compulsive stealing where the objects taken are worthless to the taker. Greek irregular verbs are why the noun is kleptēs but the mania is klepto-.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → English coinage
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
kleptomaniademocracyplutocracy
In a sentence
The report describes a kleptocracy with a functioning flag and very little else.