hegemony
noun
Simple meaning
The dominance or leadership of one social group or nation over others.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
heejehmuhneeSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
hiˈdʒɛməni
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
formal
The dominance or leadership of one social group or nation over others
“The hegemony of a single member state is not incompatible with a genuine confederation.”
formal
Domination, influence, or authority over another, especially by one political group over a society or by one nation over others.
Dominance of one social group over another, such that the ruling group or hegemon acquires some degree of consent from the subordinate, as opposed to dominance purely by force.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The dominance or leadership of one social group or nation over others
Used this way, hegemony is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.
“The hegemony of a single member state is not incompatible with a genuine confederation.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
Usage note
It most often appears in the pattern “hegemony of …”, which is worth copying when you use it.
Natural pattern: hegemony of …
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use hegemony
- “The hegemony of a single member state is not incompatible with a genuine confederation.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- allynoun
- dominationnoun
- ideologynoun
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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.