Xerocracy
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Political influence achieved by copying and distributing leaflets and similar material. informal, uncountable
"On the occasion of his son's death, the Ayatullah [Ruhollah Khomeini] wrote a letter to the Iranian people that is now regarded as the crucial document of the revolution. [...] Khomeini thus established himself as leader of the revolution by calling upon the armed forces to overthrow the Shah [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the letter were distributed in Iran. As a Tehran University professor put it [in October 1978]: "We were struggling against autocracy for democracy, by means of Xerocracy.""
Example
More examples"On the occasion of his son's death, the Ayatullah [Ruhollah Khomeini] wrote a letter to the Iranian people that is now regarded as the crucial document of the revolution. [...] Khomeini thus established himself as leader of the revolution by calling upon the armed forces to overthrow the Shah [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi]. Hundreds of thousands of copies of the letter were distributed in Iran. As a Tehran University professor put it [in October 1978]: "We were struggling against autocracy for democracy, by means of Xerocracy.""
Etymology
From xero(x) + -cracy.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.