duce
noun
Showing duce , the base form of “duced”.
Simple meaning
An authoritarian leader.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
doosIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdus
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.
noun
fascism
An authoritarian leader, especially Benito Mussolini.
The title which Italian dictator Benito Mussolini assumed during his rule (1922—1945).
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: (fascism) An authoritarian leader, especially Benito Mussolini.
Used this way, duce 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
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use duce
- “Mussolini was called Il Duce.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A writ issued by a court at the request of one of the parties to a suit.
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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.