Cruel and oppressive

Usage examples of despotic.

Lukan from his brother Vearus, who returns from exile with the secret of healing and transformation of the flesh that allows him to become Healer to the despotic ruler of Myrcia, Sanctor Grouin.

In imperial postmodernity big government has become merely the despotic means of domination and the totalitarian production of subjectivity.

Without any violation of the principles of the constitution, the general of the Roman armies might receive and exercise an authority almost despotic over the soldiers, the enemies, and the subjects of the republic.

Although he has become a philosophical moderate, Usbek is a despotic figure in the context of the harem, in part because he is caught in a cultural institution in which he no longer believes, and in part because power magnifies the inconsistencies of human nature.

She also expressed her anger at making her appear before him in a state of semi-nudity, and swore she would never forgive his barbarous and despotic conduct.

It belongs to the Graeco-Roman family, and is republican as distinguished from despotic constitutions, but it comes under the head of neither monarchical nor aristocratic, neither democratic nor mixed constitutions, and creates a state which is neither a centralized state nor a confederacy.

Even the new religions which were born from time to time--always at epochs when the mutual-aid principle was falling into decay in the theocracies and despotic States of the East, or at the decline of the Roman Empire--even the new religions have only reaffirmed that same principle.

All governments that assume it to be so, and rest on it as the foundation of their authority, are barbaric or despotic, and, therefore , without any legitimate authority.

It has always been against the policy of despotic governments to suffer the victims of their persecutions to reappear.

At a time when the last vestiges of barbarian freedom seemed to disappear, and Europe, fallen under the dominion of thousands of petty rulers, was marching towards the constitution of such theocracies and despotic States as had followed the barbarian stage during the previous starts of civilization, or of barbarian monarchies, such as we see now in Africa, life in Europe took another direction.

My young friend had also fallen into disgrace with the despotic Inquisitors.

The axiom may possibly be verified in a despotic government under an absurd, weak, or careless king who serves as a mere mask for his master the minister.

He is forced to obey a despotic monarch who looks upon his kingdom as his house, and turns out of doors anyone who meets with his displeasure.

He contended that to support the government and the constitution on which it was based was to endorse a despotic state, and he went on to express his abhorrence for the system which destroyed him and his people.

The happiness of a hundred millions depended on the personal merit of one or two men, perhaps children, whose minds were corrupted by education, luxury, and despotic power.