Totalitarianism
noun ·8 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A system of government in which the people have virtually no authority and the state wields absolute control, for example, a dictatorship. countable, uncountable
"And if it is true that in the final stages of totalitarianism an absolute evil appears (absolute because it can no longer be deduced from humanly comprehensible motives), it is also true that without it we might never have known the truly radical nature of Evil."
- 2 an ideological belief in the complete and unrestricted power of government. wordnet
- 3 a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.) wordnet
Example
More examples"The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits "atrocities" but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future."
Etymology
1938, from totalitarian + -ism, modeled after Italian totalitarismo (1923, by Giovanni Amendola) and German terms such as Totalstaat (1927, The Concept of the Political, by Carl Schmitt).
Related phrases
More for "totalitarianism"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.