Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Despot |
DespotNoun1. A dictator or dictatorial person. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "despot" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1380. (references) |
Etymology: Despot \Des"pot\, noun. [French expression despote, Late Latin expression despotus, from the Greek expression despo`ths master, lord, the second part of which is akin to po`sis husband, and Latin potens. See Potent.]. (references) |
Synonyms: DespotSynonyms: autocrat (n), tyrant (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Master | Potentate; liege, liege lord; suzerain, sovereign, monarch, autocrat, despot, tyrant, oligarch. |
Severity | Tyrant, disciplinarian, precisian, martinet, stickler, bashaw, despot, hard master, Draco, oppressor, inquisitor, extortioner, harpy, vulture; accipitres, birds of prey, raptorials, raptors. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Despot |
| English words defined with "despot": Despotat, despotic, despotical, Despotize ♦ gas. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "despot": Fashion ♦ Kingly Titles ♦ soul ♦ Xerxes. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Despot" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (autocrat, despot, tyrant), German (despot), Indonesian (despot), Romanian (despot, oppressor), Serbo-Croatian (despot, tyrant), Swedish (despot), Turkish (autocratic, autocratical, despot, despotic, despotical, tyrant). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Music |
|
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Alexis de Tocqueville | A despot easily forgives his subjects for not loving him, provided they do not love each other. |
Mikhail Bakunin | Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will. |
Oscar Wilde | Despotism is unjust to everybody, including the despot, who was probably made for better things. |
Thomas B. Macaulay | A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | This bustling mountain of flesh moved under the little finger of this frail despot. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Lexicography | Devil's Dictionary | FASHION, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey. A king there was who lost an eye In some excess of passion; And straight his courtiers all did try To follow the new fashion. Each dropped one eyelid when before The throne he ventured, thinking 'Twould please the king. That monarch swore He'd slay them all for winking. What should they do? They were not hot To hazard such disaster; They dared not close an eye -- dared not See better than their master. Seeing them lacrymose and glum, A leech consoled the weepers: He spread small rags with liquid gum And covered half their peepers. The court all wore the stuff, the flame Of royal anger dying. That's how court-plaster got its name Unless I'm greatly lying. Naramy Oof |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Despot" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Despot" is used about 48 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 48 | 49,194 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
despot ugandan | 33 |
despot | 27 |
despot enlightened | 8 |
despot home | 6 |
despot infamous roman | 5 |
despot lyrics pulse ultra | 4 |
despot roman | 4 |
despot uganda | 4 |
despot lyrics | 3 |
despot marx x | 3 |
despot pulse ultra | 2 |
despot enlightened napoleon | 2 |
despot office | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "despot"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | despot (autocrat, tyrant), tiran (oppressor, represser, tyrant). (various references) | |
Arabic | مستبد (absolute, despotic, dictatorial, domineering, highhanded, imperious, masterful, tyrannical), حاكم مطلق (autocrat, dictator, overman), طاغية (tartar, taskmaster). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | деспот (autocrat, satrap, tyrant). (various references) | |
Chinese | 霸王 (overlord, Xiang4Yu3the Conqueror), 暴君 (tyrant). (various references) | |
Czech | despota (oppressor, tyrant), tyran (bully, oppressor, tyrant). (various references) | |
Dutch | dwingeland (tyrant), despoot. (various references) | |
Esperanto | despoto. (various references) | |
Farsi | حاکم مطلق (Autarchy, Autocrat), سلطان مستبد (Autocrat), ستمگر (Atrocious, Cruel, Dispiteous, Oppressor, Tyrannous, Tyrant, Unjust), ظالم (Cruel, Grim, Heinous, Incubus, Remorseless, Ruthless, Unsparing, Wroth). (various references) | |
Finnish | despootti, hirmuvaltias (tyrant), hirmuhallitsija (tyrant). (various references) | |
French | despote (despotic). (various references) | |
German | Despot. (various references) | |
Greek | τύραννοσ (oppressor, tyrant), δεσπότησ (mogul, tyrant). (various references) | |
Hebrew | עריץ (oppressor, tyrant), רודן (dictator, tyrant). (various references) | |
Hungarian | zsarnok (autocrat, oppressor, bully, satrap, tyrant), despota, kényúr (oppressor, tyrant). (various references) | |
Indonesian | despot, sewenang-wenang (arbitrary), raja lalim. (various references) | |
Italian | despota (anarch). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 独裁者 (dictator), 暴君 (tyrant), 暴君 (tyrant), 専制君主 (absolute monarch, autocrat, tyrant). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ぼうくん (marginal notes, one's deceased lord, tyrant), どくさいしゃ (dictator), せんせいくんしゅ (absolute monarch, autocrat, tyrant). (various references) | |
Manx | tranlaasagh (despotic, oppress, oppressive, oppressiveness, oppressor, persecute, persecutor, tyrannical, tyrannize, tyrannous, tyrant). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | espotday.(various references) | |
Portuguese | déspota (tyrant), tirano (tyrant), opressor (chaser, depressor, oppressor, persecutor). (various references) | |
Romanian | despot (oppressor). (various references) | |
Russian | деспот (tyrant). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | despot (tyrant), tiranin (tyrant), nasilnik (rapist, satrap, tyrant). (various references) | |
Spanish | déspota. (various references) | |
Swedish | despot. (various references) | |
Turkish | despot (autocratic, autocratical, despotic, despotical, tyrant), zorba (autocratic, autocratical, bully, extortioner, extortionist, high handed, imperious, overbearing, persecutor, procrustean, rapacious, ravisher, rowdy, ruffian), acımasız (atrocious, brutal, coldhearted, cruel, cutthroat, dead, ferocious, fiendish, flinty, grim, hard-hearted, harsh, implacable, inclement, inexorable, inhumane, merciless, outrageous, pitiless, relentless, ruthless, slashing, stern, truculent, tyrannic, tyrannical, tyrannous, unmerciful, unpitied, unrelenting, without remorse). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | тиран (tyrant), деспот (tyrant). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | vua chuyên chế, kẻ bạo ngược, bạo quân kẻ chuyên quyền. (various references) | |
Welsh | unben (autocrat, despot unit, sovereign lord). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Greek | 700 BCE-300 CE | despotes. (various references) |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | domina, dominabantur, dominabatur, dominaberis, dominabit, dominabitur, dominabor, dominabuntur, dominamini, dominamur, dominans, dominantem, dominantes, dominantium, dominantur, dominare, dominarentur, dominareris, dominaretur, dominari, dominaris, dominatae, dominati, dominator, dominatore, dominatorem, dominatores, dominatoris, dominatrici, dominatrix, dominatur, dominatus, dominavit, dominentur, dominetur, domino, dominus, tyranni, tyrannis, tyranno, tyrannos, tyrannum, tyrannus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "despot": despotic, despotically, despotism, despotisms, despots. (additional references) | |
| |
"Despot" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Cesopot, depox, desho, Desio, Desipur, Deslon, D'eslon, desot, desp, despa, Despax, desper, despit, despost, despote, despt, destop, detop, Dexpo, Diaphot, dispo. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "despot" (pronounced de"sput) |
| 3 | -p u t | carpet, decrepit, puppet, snippet, tappet, Tippet, trumpet. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: depots, posted, stoped. | |
| Words within the letters "d-e-o-p-s-t" | |
-1 letter: depot, doest, dopes, dotes, estop, opted, pesto, poets, posed, spode, stope, toped, topes. | |
-2 letters: does, dope, dose, dost, dote, dots, epos, odes, oped, opes, opts, peds, peso, pest, pets, pods, poet, pose, post, pots, sept, sped, spot, step, stop, teds, tods, toed, toes, tope, tops. | |
-3 letters: doe, dos, dot, eds, ode, ods, oes. | |
| Words containing the letters "d-e-o-p-s-t" | |
+1 letter: bedpost, deports, deposit, desktop, despots, dopiest, outsped, podesta, podites, posited, redtops, sopited, sported, spotted, spouted, stomped, stooped, stopped, topside. | |
+2 letters: adoptees, adopters, bedposts, deposits, desktops, despotic, dioptase, diopters, dioptres, doorstep, dopester, droplets, epidotes, estopped, imposted, notepads, outspeed, outspend, pastored, pentodes, peridots, pistoled, podestas, podgiest, poetised, portends, postcode, postdate, postdive, postlude, postured, potheads, potsherd, proteids, protends, proudest, readopts, riposted, sprouted, stoppled, stropped, subdepot, tadpoles, topsider, topsides, torpedos, unposted, uptossed. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
