dictator

plural dictators · alternative obsolete dictatour

1. An authoritarian leader of a country, nation, or government.

   Dictator, noun : someone who doesn't let American CEOs dictate how their country is run

   2019, (Existential Comics), 29 January, 9:27 AM Tweet

   5 more examples

   The Dominicans had lived for thirty years under the iron-fisted rule of dictator Leonidas Trujillo. During those years, which ended with Trujillo's assassination in 1961, those who opposed Trujillo had three choices: to go into exile, to go underground, or to remain quiet. Most Dominicans had chosen the third course.

   1971, Lyndon Johnson, “A Time of Testing: Crises in the Caribbean”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 188

   What dictators fear most is losing the support of the armed forces, and when this happens, it's as if a ferocious beast has lost its teeth.

   2020 September 23, Shi Chuan, “When Police Officers No Longer Work for Dictators”, in Minghui, archived from the original on 13 Nov 2021

   "The reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot that balloon down with two box cars full of spy equipment in it was he didn't know it was there," Biden said. "That's a great embarrassment for dictators. When they didn't know what happened. That wasn't supposed to be going where it was. It was blown off course," Biden said.

   2023 June 21, Trevor Hunnicutt, Ryan Woo, quoting Joe Biden, “China hits back after Biden calls Xi a 'dictator'”, in Reuters, archived from the original on 22 Jun 2023

   One of their book’s heroes is the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who overthrew the democratic Second Spanish Republic in the country’s 1930s civil war. The authors call him a “great man of history” and compare him to George Washington. They quote him on what doesn’t work against the unhuman threat: “We do not believe in government through the voting booth. The Spanish national will was never freely expressed through the ballot box.”

   2024 August 5, Michelle Goldberg, “JD Vance Just Blurbed a Book Arguing That Progressives Are Subhuman”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 24 Aug 2024

   A monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin erected in Moscow's metro is stirring debate, with some Russians welcoming it as a historical tribute, but others saying it's a mistake to commemorate someone who presided over so much suffering.

   2025 May 22, “Monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin in Moscow metro stirs debate”, in Reuters

2. historyA magistrate without colleague in republican Ancient Rome, who held full executive authority for a term granted by the Senate, typically to conduct a war.
3. A tyrannical boss or authority figure.
4. misspellingMisspelling of dictater.