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What is "despot"

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despot
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
despot
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He was seen as an enlightened despot pursuing liberal policies in the face of dogmatic reaction from priests and landlords.
▪ In totalitarian states absolute control of information and the armed forces is the key to the survival of the despot.
▪ Qin was a cruel despot who burned books and had scholars put to death.
▪ The president is finely educated and is capable of talking like a professor and behaving like a despot.
▪ The world can not go to war every time a despot grabs a piece of land.
▪ Unarguably, the father in the poem is a despot, and the daughter is humiliated.
▪ Unluckily our moral life is too complex for any single moral principle to be a despot over all the others.
▪ Woman is not the passive chattel that the tussles of despots, described in the last chapter, have implied.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Despot

Despot \Des"pot\, n. [F. despote, LL. despotus, fr. Gr. despo`ths master, lord, the second part of which is akin to po`sis husband, and L. potens. See Potent.]

  1. A master; a lord; especially, an absolute or irresponsible ruler or sovereign.

    Irresponsible power in human hands so naturally leads to it, that cruelty has become associated with despot and tyrant.
    --C. J. Smith.

  2. One who rules regardless of a constitution or laws; a tyrant.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
despot

1560s, "absolute ruler," from Old French despot (14c.), from Medieval Latin despota, from Greek despotes "master of a household, lord, absolute ruler," from PIE *dems-pota- "house-master;" for first element see domestic (adj.); second element cognate with Latin potis, potens (see potent).\n

\nFaintly pejorative in Greek, progressively more so as used in various languages for Roman emperors, Christian rulers of Ottoman provinces, and Louis XVI during the French Revolution. The female equivalent was despoina "lady, queen, mistress," source of the proper name Despina.

Wiktionary
despot

n. 1 A ruler with absolute power; a tyrant. 2 (label en historical) A title awarded to senior members of the imperial family in the late Byzantine Empire, and claimed by various independent or semi-autonomous rulers in the Balkans (12th to 15th centuries)

WordNet
despot

n. a cruel and oppressive dictator [syn: tyrant, autocrat]

Wikipedia
Despot

Despot may refer to:

  • Despot (court title), a Byzantine court title
  • Despotism, a form of government in which power is concentrated in the hands of an individual or a small group
  • Despot (rapper), rapper Alec Reinstein's stage name
  • Despot voda or Ioan Iacob Heraclit (1511–1563), a prince in Moldavia
Despot (court title)

Despot (from , despótēs, "lord", "master") was a senior Byzantine court title that was bestowed on the sons or sons-in-law of reigning emperors, and initially denoted the heir-apparent. From Byzantium it spread throughout the late medieval Balkans ( Bulgarian and , despót), and was also granted in the states under Byzantine influence, such as the Latin Empire, Bulgaria, Serbia, and the Empire of Trebizond. It gave rise to several principalities termed "despotates" which were ruled either as independent states or as appanages by princes bearing the title of despot, most notably the Despotate of Epirus, the Despotate of the Morea and the Serbian Despotate. In English, the feminine form of the title is despotess (from Greek , despótissa; Serbian and Bulgarian деспотица, despotítsa), which denoted the spouse of a despot, but the transliterated traditional female equivalent of despotes, despoina (, "lady of the house"), is also commonly used.

The term must not be confused with its modern usage, which refers to despotism, a form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute power. The semantic shift undergone by the term is mirrored by tyrant, an ancient Greek word that originally bore no negative connotation, and the Latin dictator, a constitutionally sanctioned office of the Roman Republic. In colloquial Modern Greek, the word is often used to refer to a bishop.

Despot (rapper)

Alec Reinstein (born May 7, 1982), better known by his stage name Despot, is an American hip-hop artist from Queens, New York City. He was signed to rapper El-P's label Definitive Jux in 2004. Despite not having released a full-length solo album, Despot has been a part of the New York underground rap scene for over a decade. Despot is associated with the Smart Crew collective and a co-owner of Santos Party House.

Usage examples of "despot".

Democrats spend years dillydallying with lunatic despots who threaten America, eventually a Republican president comes in and threatens aggressive military action.

The Directoire dress points to another period of republican simplicity, anarchy, and the rule of a popular despot.

Gordon was a despot, but he was relatively unambitious and seemed satisfied by his role as Mercurian Sun King.

Hamzah Negara, Butcher of the Sabu Sea, weighed in at one-thirty on a good day, one hundred and thirty pounds of seventy-year-old sinew and bone wrapped around the heart of a despot.

Yossarian and Dunbar were busy in a far corner pawing orgiastically at four or five frolicsome girls and six bottles of red wine, and Hungry Joe had long since tramped away down one of the mystic hallways, propelling before him like a ravening despot as many of the broadest-hipped young prostitutes as he could contain in his frail wind-milling arms and cram into one double bed.

The oligarchs and tyrants and despots and politicians who ruled their planets by the threat of the Disciplinary Circuit found this new state of affairs deplorable.

A couple of times, however, he quarreled bitterly with Lizaveta Prokofyevna, told her that she was a despot and that he would not set foot in the house again.

Numidia was not sophisticated, though like all Eastern-style despots, Jugurtha did avail himself of dungeons and long-term imprisonment.

For it is but fair presumption that the Dramatists, whom our Legislators have placed in bondage to a despot, are, no less than those Legislators, proud of their calling, conscious of their duty, and jealous of their honour.

He no despot, because He exercises only His sovereign right, and His own essential wisdom, goodness, justness, rectitude, and immutability, are the highest of all conceivable guaranties that His exercise of His power will always be right, wise, just, and good.

I doubt not, more acceptable in the view of his Maker than the lying praise of many a hypocrite who, having enthroned a demon as Lord of the Universe, thinks to conciliate his favor by using the phrases which the slaves of Eastern despots are in the habit of addressing to their masters.

Taking advantage of the coldness which had for some time existed between the Taiko and Rikiu, the enemies of the latter accused him of being implicated in a conspiracy to poison the despot.

John Major had just been speaking about the need to stand up to aggression and tinpot despots wherever they reared their heads.

Trigger being used as he had been promised it would be - of would-be bombers killed by their own bombs, of despots deposed and armies deprived of their armories, of thugs and punks and wiseguys stripped of their finely machined blued-steel masculinity.

Britain and France had started World War II over Poland, but at Yalta Roosevelt cavalierly relinquished Poland to another totalitarian despot.