authoritarian
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Favoring authoritarianism over civic and individual liberties.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhthawruhtehreeuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əθɔɹəˈtɛɹiən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Of, or relating to, or exhibiting strict obedience to an authority; favoring authoritarianism over civic and individual liberties.
Demanding obedience to authority; marked by authoritarianism; dictatorial, tyrannical.
Tending to impose one's demands upon others as if one were an authority.
noun
One who follows and is excessively obedient to authority.
One who commands absolute obedience to his or her authority.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Of, or relating to, or exhibiting strict obedience to an authority; favoring authoritarianism over civic and individual liberties.
Used this way, authoritarian is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A government that concentrates political power in an authority not responsible to the people.
A government that concentrates political power in an authority not responsible to the people.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.