Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Theocracy
/θiˈɒkrəsi/noun
A state governed by clergy or by religious law taken as the law of the land.
The Greek roots
θεός
theós
god
κράτος
krátos
power, rule
Literally: “rule by god”
The story of the word
Josephus invented the word around AD 94 in Against Apion, admitting he was forcing the language. Roman readers knew monarchy, oligarchy and democracy; he needed a fourth term for a constitution whose sovereign was God, and built θεοκρατία to supply it. English borrowed it in the 1620s, at first only for ancient Israel.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1620s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
theologyatheistdemocracyenthusiasm
In a sentence
The draft constitution stopped one clause short of a theocracy.