Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Autocratic   /ˌɔtəkrˈætɪk/   Listen
Autocratic

adjective
1.
Offensively self-assured or given to exercising usually unwarranted power.  Synonyms: bossy, dominating, high-and-mighty, magisterial, peremptory.  "Autocratic behavior" , "A bossy way of ordering others around" , "A rather aggressive and dominating character" , "Managed the employees in an aloof magisterial way" , "A swaggering peremptory manner"
2.
Characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule; having absolute sovereignty.  Synonyms: authoritarian, despotic, dictatorial, tyrannic, tyrannical.  "Autocratic government" , "Despotic rulers" , "A dictatorial rule that lasted for the duration of the war" , "A tyrannical government"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Autocratic" Quotes from Famous Books



... later the priest walked down the avenue of walnut trees alone. The bell was ringing for vespers, but the Padre was an autocratic shepherd and did not hurry towards his flock. The sun had set, and in the hollows of the distant mountains the shades of night already ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman

... advantages gained by the Germans may be ascribed to the strikingly prompt mobilization of their armies, one of the most noticeable features of their perfect military system, devised by almost autocratic power; their later successes were greatly aided by the blunders of the French, whose stupendous errors materially shortened the war, though even if prolonged it could, in my opinion, have had ultimately no ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... leading civilization, outpacing the rest of the world in the arts and sciences, but in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the country was beset by civil unrest, major famines, military defeats, and foreign occupation. After World War II, the Communists under MAO Zedong established an autocratic socialist system that, while ensuring China's sovereignty, imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people. After 1978, his successor DENG Xiaoping and other leaders focused on market-oriented ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... circle of diplomats and litterateurs there were many counter-currents of opinion. It was her consummate skill in blending these diverse but powerful elements, and holding them within harmonious limits, that made the reputation of the autocratic hostess. The friend of savants and philosophers, she had neither read nor studied books, but she had studied life to good purpose. Though superficial herself, she had the delicate art of putting every one in the most advantageous ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... and oftener since her grandfather's second marriage, taken occasion to allude to her intention of accompanying her brother to his post of duty, however distant and dangerous that post might be. She had done this with the fixed purpose of preparing this autocratic old gentleman's mind for ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... tried by any such standard. It scornfully rejected and still rejects a human origin. It claims to be accredited supernaturally. The sovereign pontiff is the Vicar of God upon earth. Infallible in judgment, it is given to him to accomplish all things by miracle if need be. He had exercised an autocratic tyranny over the intellect of Europe for more than a thousand years; and, though on some occasions he had encountered the resistances of disobedient princes, these, in the aggregate, were of so little moment, that the physical, the political power of ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... the long silences, the "front-piece" that didn't match her hair, the very obvious "parting" that seemed sewed in with linen thread on black net,—there was not a single item that appealed to Rebecca. There are certain narrow, unimaginative, and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous, and sometimes the worst traits in children. Miss Miranda, had she lived in a populous neighborhood, would have had her doorbell pulled, her gate tied up, or "dirt traps" set in her garden paths. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... test of democracy. The question it will settle is this: can free men, by voluntary cooperation, develop an efficiency and an endurance which will make it possible for them to stand and protect their liberties against the machinery and aggressive ambitions of autocratic empires where everything is done paternally from the top? If they can, then democracy will survive and grow as the highest form of society for ages to come; if not, then democracy will pass and be succeeded by ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs

... traveled no faster than my thoughts as I hurried back to my own apartment and the bedside of my mother-in-law. I dreaded inexpressibly the conflict I foresaw when the autocratic old woman should find out that I had sent for ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison

... two new sons-in-law whom his ability to clothe them had soon procured in London, listened impatiently, once they had safely passed under the Canopy and were ensconced in plush parlours of their own. Home and shop became his only realm, and his autocratic tendencies grew the stronger by compression. He read 'the largest circulation,' and his wife became an echo of its opinions. These opinions, never nebulous, became sharp as illuminated sky-signs when the ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... mottled mite Asserts with voice emphatic, In lisping accents, "Mite is right," Their rule is autocratic: The song becomes, that charmed mankind, Their musical narcotic, And baby lips than Love, she'll find, Are even ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various

... salon, with gilt chairs, oval, polished tables, faded rugs and shining mirrors, sat a purple china dog with his tail curled over his back sternly staring into vacancy. His expression and his attitude were autocratic and determined, betokening a tyrannical nature, and Domini peeped at him with precaution, holding herself very still lest he should become aware of her ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens

... worthy minion of a tyrant, was chosen as the first governor-general, and arrived at Boston in December, 1686, determined to bring these rampant colonists to a sense of their duty as humble subjects of his royal master. He quickly began to display autocratic authority, with an offensiveness of manner that disgusted the citizens as much as his acts of tyranny annoyed them. The several colonies were peremptorily ordered to deliver up their charters. With the response to this command we are not here concerned, except in the case of Connecticut, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... planet in the galaxy. But important planets—in the way that Irwadi would be important—couldn't maintain the status quo. For example, Irwadi's form of government might have to be changed. At present, an autocratic bureaucracy with no one man at the top. Ultimately, after the rediscovery of proto-man's ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance

... leaving a trail of blood behind him. Every team has its bully, and sometimes its outcast. The bully is master of them all. He fights his way to his position of supremacy, and holds it by punishing upon the slightest provocation, real or fancied, any encroachment upon his autocratic prerogatives. Likewise he dis- ciplines the pack when he thinks they need it or when he feels like it, and he is always the ringleader in mischief. When there is an outcast he is a doomed dog. The others harass and fight him at every opportunity. They are pitiless. They do not associate with ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace

... absolute monarchy by internal political changes and institutions. Frederick the Great secured for it a solid foundation in the hearts of the people. The one was thoroughly autocratic in disposition, and not seldom displayed this disposition too offensively; the other knew how to use his hereditary power without seeming to care about it. In fact, under the influence of Voltaire and the French liberalism, he himself learned to cherish very liberal opinions respecting ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... on the line of Mr. Eyre's route in 1841. I did this before the introduction of representative government, and it is right to say that I knew that I could not have got a vote for it. I felt that this was the last act of an expiring autocratic regime, and I believe it was one of the least popular of my acts; but certainly no small sum of public money has been expended with greater results—for, as I hoped, Mr. Forrest's expedition has bridged the gap that separated West Australia from the ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... whether as a monarchy or a republic, China has always rested her rule on gigantic and almost autonomous provinces, under separate Viceroys. Those provinces have doubtless been subject to the same autocratic control as China herself, but with the change in her central government they will probably pass by an easy transition into Home Rule provinces. Or come nearer home to an Empire which most Englishmen imagine to be the most ...
— Home Rule - Second Edition • Harold Spender

... the real man, the true man, is a common idiom for governor or ruler, he being the only "real man" in an autocratic community (ante p. 26). ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various

... opening for the realization of those schemes of religious and even of political reform on which the scholars of the New Learning had long been brooding. The substitution of the lords of the council for the autocratic rule of the cardinal-minister, the break-up of the great mass of powers which had been gathered into a single hand, the summons of a parliament, the ecclesiastical reforms which it at once sanctioned, were measures which promised a more legal and constitutional system ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... colloquial expression, was knocked off her perch. She was one of those imperfectly self-assured individuals who are magnificent and autocratic as long as they are not seriously opposed. The least show of unexpected resistance goes a long way towards rendering them cowed and apologetic. When the new governess failed to express wondering admiration of the large newly-purchased ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... empire almost as a sovereign, for Caesar, formerly a laborious and autocratic ruler, shrank from all business. Even before they left Alexandria the plebeian prefect could see that Serapion's prophecy was fulfilling itself. He remained in close intimacy with the soothsayer; but only once more, and just before Caesar's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... do that. He had all trust in his sister's judgment, he knew her dislike of interference, her love of autocratic supervision, so he asked no questions, but in grateful relief kissed ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... 25th came a great outpouring of feeling from Miss Barrett. She took her friend so far into her confidence as to speak plainly of the household difficulties caused by her father's autocratic temper. The conversation was immediately followed by a letter in which she endeavoured to soften or qualify the impression her words had given, and her heart, now astir and craving sympathy, led her on to write of her most sorrowful and sacred memories—those ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... to the present time by the enlightened, progressive and wise government that rules the destinies of the Mexican Republic, and they are a barrier that henceforth will impede the investigation of scientific men, among the ruins of Yucatan and Mexico. It is in effect a strange fact, that while autocratic governments, like those of Turkey, Greece, and Persia, do not interpose difficulties—that of Turkey to Dr. Henry Schliemann, after discovering the site of the celebrated Troy and the treasures of King Priam, to his carrying his findings and presenting them to the civilized ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... serpentine course through the broad, gray-looking sage and grease-wood plains, while at occasional intervals narrow patches of green, in striking contrast to the surrounding gray, show where the hardy mountain grasses venturously endeavor to invade the domains of the autocratic sagebrush. What is that queer-looking little reptile, half lizard, half frog, that scuttles about among the rocks. It is different from anything I have yet seen. Around the back of its neck and along its sides, and, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... no autocratic airs, In scorn of humbler days, But shapes her fortunes and affairs, To match the civic wreath she wears ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... press of the state is almost unanimous in its condemnation of the late Legislature. * * * As we have said before, the general littleness of the body, its petty conduct in many instances, its trades and combinations, the autocratic methods of self-seeking members, the quarrels, the cheap declamations and intemperate and undignified and unwarrantable public denunciations by members who should have shown a better sense of dignity and decency, the dishonesty in juggling ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... that God is realizing Himself in the deeds of man, and human history is just His return to Himself. Outer law and inner motive are, for the poet, manifestations of the same beneficent purpose; and instead of duty in the sense of an autocratic imperative, or beneficent tyranny, he finds, deep beneath man's foolishness and sin, a constant tendency towards the good which is bound up with the very nature of man's reason and will. If man could only understand himself he would find without him no limiting necessity, but the ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones

... overthrow of this military caste which labor has—["Hear, hear!"]—and the more they realize that, difficulties will vanish, obstacles will go, and bickerings and slackness. We have to get to work as one man to help to win a triumph for democratic free government against the autocratic systems of Germany and ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... old age the scrupulous neatness which had characterized her youth, when promoted to the post of seamstress and ladies' maid, she had ruled the servants' realm at "Elm Bluff" with a sway as autocratic as that of Catherine over the Muscovites. Her black calico dress, donned as mourning for her master, was relieved by a white apron tied about the ample waist; a snowy handkerchief was crossed over the vast bosom, and a checked white and black turban skilfully wound in intricate folds around ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... the sake of Wuerttemberg. Having come to his ducal throne prematurely, through the influence of the King of Prussia, he began well, but after a few years shook off the restraints of good advice and entered upon a course of autocratic folly that made Wuerttemberg a far-shining example of the evils of absolutism under the Old Regime. Early in his reign he married a beautiful and high-minded princess of Bayreuth, but his profligacy soon drove her back to the home of her parents. Then a succession of mistresses ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... subject always to the will of the people, and without their concurrence and co-operation nothing can be done.[30] The power of the purse and the power of the sword are thus exercised mediately, and the autocratic power is in practice transferred to the general body of high functionaries, or to that clique which for the time being has the ear of the emperor, and is united enough and powerful enough to impose its ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... time when the Salvation Army began to acquire strength and to grow from the grain of mustard seed until now, when its branches overshadow the whole earth, we have been constantly warned against the evils which this autocratic system would entail. Especially were we told that in a democratic age the people would never stand the establishment of what was described as a spiritual despotism. It was contrary to the spirit of the times, it would be ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth

... went on more desperately still. But Smithers' work in releasing men was telling. There were fifteen hundred governors, or reducing valves, or autocratic cut-outs in operation now. And fifteen hundred men were released from the machines, which had to be kept going to keep the city alive. With that many men, intelligent mechanics all, Tommy and Smithers worked wonders. Smithers drove them mercilessly, using profanity ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... imply the influence of kings and leaders in essentially the same sense as do the successes of primitive war, the only difference being that the kings are here more numerous, and though they do not wear any arms or uniforms, are incomparably more autocratic than the kings and czars who do."[199] "Slavery, feudalism, and capitalism," he tells us, "agree with one another in being systems under which the few"[200] control ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith

... either violently burning, or, at least, smouldering. Two of the oldest empires in the world, which, together, have more than half of its population (China and Russia) are in a welter of anarchy; while many lesser nations are in a stage of submerged revolt. If the revolt were confined to autocratic governments, we might see in it merely a reaction against tyranny; but even in the most stable of democracies and among the most enlightened peoples, the underground rumblings ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck

... was succeeded by his son, Charles, who had already exercised for some years authority in the Netherlands as his father's deputy. Charles, as his surname le Temeraire witnesses, was a man of impulsive and autocratic temperament, but at the same time a hard worker, a great organiser, and a brilliant soldier. Consumed with ambition to realise that restoration of a great middle Lotharingian kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, for which his father had been working during ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... officialdom, outside of the commission itself, and all the employes and the servants of the city are by law made the agents, servants, and dependents of the council. The possibilities for machine power with this autocratic centralization of authority are without condition. We can demonstrate this best by giving practical illustrations taken from the active operation of the commission form. We may preface these by saying that there is nothing inherent in the commission ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon

... polity finds its fellow nowhere in the world. It is a Government responsible neither to King nor people. It is not a democratic Government, nor an autocratic Government, nor even an oligarchical Government. It is a Government hag-ridden by forty-one administrative Boards, whose functions overlap one another and sometimes conflict with one another. Some are fed with money from the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill

... nothing would be too romantic to fit Marblehead. This town is fantastic in the extreme, builded, to quote Miss Alice Brown, who has written delightfully of Agnes and her life, "as if by a generation of autocratic landowners, each with a wilful bee in his bonnet."[1] For Marblehead is no misnomer, and the early settlers had to plant their houses and make their streets as best they could. As a matter of stern fact, every house in Marblehead had to be like the wise man's in the ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... things, no doubt, such as the Black Country and the suburbs of our cities, on which the eye cannot rest with pleasure. But Paris is not hideous. There may be in the long lines of buildings too much of the autocratic monotony of the Empire, but the city, as a whole, is the perfect image of a brilliant civilization. From London beauty is almost banished by smoke and fog, which deny to the poor architect ornament, colour, light and shadow, leaving him nothing but outline. No doubt besides the smoke and fog there ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... favorite measures, a religious education bill, he was obliged to withdraw on account of the opposition it excited. On more than one occasion he came into sharp conflict with the Reichstag concerning increased taxation for the army and navy, and a strong party against his autocratic methods sprang up, and forced him more than once to ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... in the utmost detail, and wrapped him up in soft, warm blankets, and smothered him with kisses. A regal time that was, and four and thirty years ago; and a merciful forgetfulness barred Mr. Polly from ever bringing its careless luxury, its autocratic demands and instant obedience, into contrast with his present condition of life. These two people had worshipped him from the crown of his head to the soles of his exquisite feet. And also they had fed him rather unwisely, for no one had ever troubled to teach his ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells

... boxes at two dollars a cake. Or again, the merchant feigns the article is not for sale, is private property, an heirloom or a gift; and the trick infallibly succeeds. Thwart the king and you hold him. His autocratic nature rears at the affront of opposition. He accepts it for a challenge; sets his teeth like a hunter going at a fence; and with no mark of emotion, scarce even of interest, stolidly piles up the price. Thus, for our sins, he took a fancy to my wife's dressing-bag, ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... her advent into the family. I hardly know whether this wealth they talk of will be a help or a hindrance; a help, I suppose. And there need not be any hitch in the whole affair if the girl is only reasonable and this autocratic ranger can be ignored or bought over to silence. It would be very annoying to have such family affairs talked of—annoying to the girl, also, when she lives among people who object to scandals. Gad! how her face did strike ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... his case with sympathy. Three of them, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, under the leadership of the Czar, Alexander I, in the autumn of 1815, had entered into a Holy Alliance to sustain by reciprocal service the autocratic principle in government. Although the effusive, almost maudlin, language of the treaty did not express their purpose explicitly, the Alliance was later regarded as a mere union of monarchs to prevent the rise and ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... they also under his advice claimed the right to review the President's nominations before they were sent to the Senate. To the President, who had as Governor and as General been in the habit of exercising autocratic command, these attempts to hamper his action were very annoying, and at times he ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore

... confidence expressed by the organs of the Church authorities in Utah. It showed in the cheerful predictions of the Prophets that the Lord would overrule in Apostle Smoot's behalf. It showed in Smoot's exercise of an autocratic leadership in the political affairs ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins

... is seized by the triumphant idea of letting Caroline find out for herself what she wants. He gives up to her the control of the house, saying, "Do as you like." He substitutes the constitutional system for the autocratic system, a responsible ministry for an absolute conjugal monarchy. This proof of confidence —the object of much secret envy—is, to women, a field-marshal's baton. Women are then, so to ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... no intention; it meant nothing at all. And the other great empires adrift, perilously adrift like marine mines, were in the self-same case. Absurd as a British cabinet council must seem to you now, it was no whit more absurd than the controlling ganglion, autocratic council, president's committee, or what not, of each of its blind rivals. . ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells

... budgets as they stood at the beginning of the war. The wealth of more than twenty nations is being rapidly drained, and the world's financial reserves are being consumed in this vicious and sinful struggle which an autocratic militarism has ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy

... Stubbles were his principal opponents in the place, and he felt quite sure that they had been the chief cause of the trouble in church affairs in the past. Why did the people allow them to rule in such an autocratic way? he asked himself. Surely there was some one strong enough to oppose ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody

... Bois, how I envy you! You will have an object in life, while I, who feel as though a pent-up volcano were roaring within me, am condemned to let my struggling energies smoulder beneath the ashes of my father's autocratic will! You have heard of his opposition to my studying for the bar? What is to become of me if I am deprived of every stimulating incentive to action?—especially now—now that"—he checked himself suddenly. He was not aware that M. de Bois had been informed by Bertha of ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie

... inconsistency from the ruthless application of their doctrines. The common sense of the community has shrunk from extreme logic. In a country of free discussion and of free institutions doctrines are counteracted by other influences. Theories are tested by life. In an autocratic country theories are supreme. The undiluted theories of Rousseau and Robespierre were supreme under the Reign of Terror; the theories of Katkov and the extreme Pan-Slavists were supreme in Russia under the reign of Alexander III. Under a government like Prussia, where all the spiritual forces ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea

... it was an easy matter for the Stuarts to return to their old kingdom. Indeed, they were welcomed as "deliverers" by the people who had found the yoke of the meek Puritans quite as hard to bear as that of autocratic King Charles. Provided the Stuarts were willing to forget about the Divine Right of their late and lamented father and were willing to recognise the superiority of Parliament, the people promised that they would be ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... last four years, we have made the exercise of all power more democratic; for we have begun to bring private autocratic powers into their proper subordination to the public's government. The legend that they were invincible—above and beyond the processes of a democracy—has been shattered. They ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various

... then one of a group of semi-popular, semi-autocratic monarchies. The rights of the people were asserted by the States General which met from time to time, usually at much longer intervals than the German Diets or the English Parliaments, and by the Parlements of the various provinces. These latter were rather high courts ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... devout Catholics secretly reprobated, were to him perfectly justifiable, and the institution itself as sacred as the cathedral; and the suspicion aroused within him by George's question as to the whereabouts of the building—that this little band of autocratic, domineering heretics meditated an invasion of its sacred precincts, possibly with the intention of perpetrating some act of violence therein, and in any case desecrating it by their intrusion—stirred his fanatical religious rancour to boiling ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... that this international co-operation is not by any means always with similar and racially allied nations. Republican France finds itself, and has been for a generation, the ally of autocratic Russia. Australia, that much more than any other country has been obsessed by the yellow peril and the danger from Japan, finds herself today fighting side by side with the Japanese. And as to the ineradicable hostility of races preventing international ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... When the autocratic reign of Henry Dundas as Lord Advocate was for a time eclipsed, Henry Erskine was his successor in the Whig interest. In his good-humoured way Dundas proposed to lend Erskine his embroidered gown, suggesting that it would not be long before he (Dundas) would ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton

... there were no limits to her audacity and power. She was, he thought, stronger than the men who thought they were ruling the destinies of nations. For she could ride rough-shod over convention and prejudice and human dignity. She was perhaps the last representative of an autocratic egotism in a world in which the individual will had almost ceased to exist. She seemed to him the survival of ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... many reasons why Larry was appealed to by the idea of making his home for the present in this old house in this dingy, unexciting, unromantic street. He was drawn toward this bluff, outspoken, autocratic painter, and was curious about him. And then the way his grandmother had spoken, the gleam in her old eyes, had stirred an affection for her that he had never before felt. And then there was Maggie, with her startlingly new dusky beauty, her admiration of him that had so swiftly altered ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott

... served all parties faithfully in turn, but most faithfully of all he has served himself. Actively engaged through life as a politician and a soldier, he has found time to readjust the whole complicated system of Mexican laws, and, in a series of volumes of autocratic decrees, he has drawn from that chaotic mass a new system of jurisprudence, that will stand as a monument of his genius as long as the Mexican nation ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... of property is given us by the Roman law, faithfully followed in this particular by the ancient legists. It is the absolute, exclusive, autocratic domain of a man over a thing,—a domain which begins by USUCAPTION, is maintained by POSSESSION, and finally, by the aid of PRESCRIPTION, finds its sanction in the civil law; a domain which so identifies the man with the thing, that the proprietor ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... close touch with the Hudson's Bay people. Although nominally that great trading company parted with its autocratic power and exclusive franchise in 1870, it is still the sovereign of the north. And here let me correct an error that is sometimes found even in respectable print—the Company has at all times been ready ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and circumstance. With all its fallacies, or rather its shortcomings, it served a magnificent purpose. It opened a road never before trodden from social slavery towards social freedom, from the mediaeval autocratic regime of fixed caste and hereditary status towards a regime of equal social justice. In this sense the classical economy was but the fruition, or rather represented the final consciousness of a process ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock

... spread for them by Girolamo in the long exhibition hall of the stabilimenti, for which it had been needful to procure permission of the Senate; but for once it suited well the humor of this august and autocratic body that one of the people should, for a day, make himself great among them. Thus for the inhabitants of Murano—men, women, and children—there was a welcome waiting the day long in the house of the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... of many ills. The Transvaal Boers, knowing little of the world, thought they had defeated Britain; and under the lead of Paul Kruger, a shrewd old farmer who henceforth directed their policy with all but autocratic power, began to pursue the aim of creating a purely Dutch South Africa, and of driving the British into the sea. Kruger's policy was one of pure racial dominance, not of equality of rights. It was a natural ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir

... power was one delegated by the group of which she and her children were a part and closely related to peaceful ways and to primitive industrial arts. Under the father-rule, the political and legal elements of the family were emphasized, since his was an autocratic and personal control of wife and children, even of adult sons, and in many cases of his own mother, and marked the beginning and worked toward the power of the modern state. In all cases, however, it was as a representative of the group-ideal and the group-control that the parents ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer

... destined to play its part in the formation of this new type. The process by which this will take place will be no sudden and wholesale amalgamation—a thing certainly not to be expected, and hardly to be desired. If it were held desirable, and one could imagine a government sufficiently autocratic to enforce its behests, it would be no great task to mix the races mechanically, leaving to time merely the fixing ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... was elected as Governor of the State of New Jersey. Even in those days he displayed, side by side, on the one hand, his democratic bias which led him violently to oppose the aristocratic student-clubs, and on the other, his egocentric and autocratic leanings which made him inaccessible to any advice from outside, and constantly embroiled him with the governing council of the University. As Governor of New Jersey, The Holy Land of "Trusts," Mr. Wilson opened ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... was too good a diplomatist for this; war is the negation of diplomacy, and the statesman who has recourse to it must for the time give over the control to other hands. It is always a clumsy method. The love of war for the sake of war will be found more commonly among autocratic sovereigns who are their own generals than among skilled and practised ministers, and generally war is the last resource by which a weak diplomatist attempts to conceal his blunders and to regain what ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... the autocratic form of government still prevailed in Russia, and the Allies still considered themselves bound to Russia's aspirations; moreover there existed, in regard to Italy, the obligations established by the Pact of London. That is why in the statements of the Entente ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti

... practically hopeless, I fear that the evils now connected with the omnipotence of the State would soon reappear. Trade Union officials, as soon as they become part of the governing forces in the country, tend to become autocratic and conservative; they lose touch with their constituents and gravitate, by a psychological sympathy, into co-operation with the powers that be. Their formal installation in authority through the Guilds Congress ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell

... of honour's in abeyance, For one or two days, reader, we request You'll mount with our young hero the conveyance Which wafted him from Petersburgh: the best Barouche, which had the glory to display once The fair Czarina's autocratic crest, When, a new Iphigene, she went to Tauris, Was given to her favourite,[546] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... is, in the prosperity of the whole state as distinguished from any part of it. It had been the strong point of monarchy that the king, for selfish reasons as proprietor of the country, felt this interest. The autocratic form of government, solely on that account, had always a certain rough sort of efficiency. It had been, on the other hand, the fatal weakness of democracy, during its negative phase previous to the great Revolution, that the people, who were the rulers, had individually ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... child?" repeated the old officer, with his autocratic friendliness. "Out with it. You and I ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... haughty, peremptory, arrogant, controlling, imperative, positive, authoritative, despotic, imperious, supreme, autocratic, dictatorial, irresponsible, tyrannical, coercive, dogmatic, lordly, unconditional, commanding, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and the justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure the observance of ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson

... through the customs. But ...! Who was there in London just then that knew him well enough so to presume upon his good nature? None that he could call to mind. Besides, how in the name of all things inexplicable had anybody found out his intention of sailing on the Autocratic, that particular day?—something of which he himself had yet to be twenty-four ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... Government was driven towards imperialistic expansion by the ever-increasing force of public opinion and popular discontent. It could only purchase renewed leases of autocratic power at home, with its perquisites for those who wielded and supported autocracy, by feeding the minds of the people with diplomatic triumphs and their bodies with new markets for commercial and industrial expansion; and the incidents of military domination grew ever ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... shires—and they were all men who had no connection with the Exchequer or the Curia Regis. Their work was done, and their report presented within the time allowed; but the king, practical, businesslike, impatient of abuses, like every vigorous autocratic ruler, had no mind to wait two months to redress the grievances of his people. The barons who had been appointed as sheriffs at the opening of his reign had governed after the old corrupt traditions, or perhaps ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green

... were "all Stuff!" "Monstrous!" "Incredible!" "Don't tell me!" Indeed I, with many, could find a parallel in the great old Doctor for almost everything he said. Even when there was a smile at his vehemence, he would unconsciously repeat the Doctor's autocratic methods. ...
— John Forster • Percy Hethrington Fitzgerald

... of occult science, including all the members of the S.R.I.A., belonged. "English Masonry," it was remarked, "boasts the Grand Lodge of 1717, the Mother Lodge of the World. They are a proud, jealous, autocratic body. Co-Masonry derives from the Grand Orient of France, an illegitimate body according to English ruling. No English Mason can work with Co-Masons.... If the English Grand Lodge hears of anything called 'Esoteric Masonry' derived ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... that a thriving and expanding colony of white men neither can nor ought to be taxed and governed without their own consent, obtained in some form or other; and that it would be both unwise and unjust to attempt a permanently autocratic government. This is a most serious question, and the Act 31st George III., under which Canada was governed until 1841, would appear to solve the difficulty. The general scheme of government of that Act might operate so soon as the new Colony had a population ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... the Arabs, who were besieging it. From about this time the Bulgarian monarchy, which had been hereditary, became elective, and the anarchy of the many, which the Bulgars found when they arrived, and which their first few autocratic rulers had been able to control, was replaced by an anarchy of the few. Prince succeeded prince, war followed war, at the will of the feudal nobles. This internal strife was naturally profitable to the Greeks, who lavishly ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth

... desired her continued dominance and supremacy in the country. History has happily long since done justice to James Otis and seen him in a fairer and far more worthy light—the light not only of a patriot lover of liberty, but an ardent and invincible defender of his country against autocratic encroachment, and a fearless asserter of the principles which have become the foundation stone of the American nation. In his masterful way, Otis was at times heedlessly bitter and inveterate in his prejudices against the ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath

... as a man cultivates independence and autocratic ideas, just so in proportion is he nearing the brink over which many have fallen to destruction. When an independent man has a fall, his enemies glory and loud are the shouts that arise from them, and if we listen closely we will hear the ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter

... created by Mr. James Board, the Labour Member, during the discussion of the Plumage Bill. After observing that fine feathers might make fine birds he went on to say that lawn sleeves were no palliation of the assumption of dictatorial and autocratic powers. The entire Liberal Party cheered the statement for twenty minutes, and then continued the demonstration with mouth-organs and megaphones for close upon an hour ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various

... her first season as a sweet, reasonable, and unspoiled girl, was always friendly with him. That must be looked upon as important, considering Sylvia's unassailable position, and her kinship to the autocratic old lady whose kindly ukase had for generations remained the undisputed law in the social ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... He claims that the commission is autocratic, down to its last deputy. Denies that we have the right to apportion one-half the earnings to the workers and the other half to the owners. States that our system ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint

... advance toward democracy. The administration of the railways will be in the hands of officials whose bias and associations separate them from labor, and who will develop an autocratic temper through the habit of power. The democratic machinery by which these officials are nominally controlled is cumbrous and remote, and can only be brought into operation on first-class issues which rouse the interest of the whole nation. Even then it ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell

... O autocratic muse! Soul-rainbow of all hues, Packed full of service are thy bygone years; Thy winged steed doth fly Across the starry sky, Bearing the lowly ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various

... corruption and backwardness of Russian life than to the defects of the tsar himself. His love of liberty, though sincere, was in fact unreal. It flattered his vanity to pose before the world as the dispenser of benefits; but his theoretical liberalism was mated with an autocratic will which brooked no contradiction. "You always want to instruct me!'' he exlaimed to Derzhavin, the minister of justice, "but I am the autocratic emperor, and I will this, and nothing else!'' "He would gladly have agreed,'' wrote Adam Czartoryski, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... you need," he said, in the sharp, autocratic fashion that was his habit. "We aren't through yet." Then, for a few moments, he regarded the slim figure as it lay back once more in the armchair. "Say," he began, abruptly, "you reckon to go on for—yourself? Yes? You're a ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum

... dew beneath his sunrise—sooth, But glittered dew-like in the covenanted And high-rayed light. He was a despot—granted, But the [Greek: autos] of his autocratic mouth Said 'Yea' i' the people's French! He magnified The image of the ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton

... statement of tendencies, we may observe that neither theory has ever been definitely adopted in England. The Utilitarians desired to recast institutions for the greater happiness of all citizens, but they were averse to investing the State with autocratic powers of interference. The Tories, on the other hand, were awakening to the conviction that the Government must do more for the people; but their fear of change and their own 'sinister interests,' ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... consequence of the declaration and recognition of these principles was eventually the establishment of modern constitutional law. It was not in consequence of his teaching, but merely in spite of it, that for the next two centuries (in certain instances) monarchical government became more autocratic, as feudalism was being transformed into civil government. . . . All through Luther's writings, and in his own acts as well, is to be read the right of the individual to think and believe in matters political, religious, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... of distinctly imperious and haughty bearing— Acor perhaps exhibiting those characteristics most markedly, as was only natural, considering the exalted position which he occupied at Court, and the almost autocratic authority which he wielded; nevertheless, at the sight of Earle's talisman, they suddenly subdued their haughty demeanour to one of deep reverence, and bowed low before the American, with their hands crossed upon their breasts, while they murmured a few ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... we declare, fighting for a complete change in international methods, and we are bound to stick to the logical consequences of that. We have placed ourselves on the side of democratic revolution against autocratic monarchy, and we cannot afford to go on shilly-shallying with that choice. We cannot in these days of black or white play the part of lukewarm friends to freedom. I will not remind the reader here of the ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells

... half afraid to quote them, they sound so heretical, but I wish to emphasise the fact that they are quoted. They might be the snapping of the fox at the sour grapes for all I know! Though this particular man seemed calm and dispassionate. "The Liberal Club Board," he said, "is a purely autocratic institution. It is collectively a trained poodle, though composed of nine members. The procedure is to make a few long speeches, praise the club, and re-elect the Board. Perfectly simple. But—did you say Liberal Club?" He used to sit on ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... the supreme power doing that thing quhilk appertains to his charge, do resist Goddis ordinance, and therefore cannot be guiltles."[260] Melville, who was called to contend with a king bent on securing autocratic power in the church as well as in the state, laid down, with the utmost precision, the principle in chapter x., "Although kings and princes that be godlie, sumtymes be their awin authority whan the kirk is corruptit and all things out ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... to the skikken (regent) of Kamakura days. But whereas, the Kamakura shikken exercised virtually autocratic authority, the shogun being a minor, the Muromachi kwanryo, nominally, at all events, was under the control of an adult shogun. In fact, the kwanryo in the Muromachi polity resembled the betto of the Man-dokoro in Yoritomo's ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... mass-production of articles of common consumption profitable for the first time. But, even after Russian capitalism was thus enabled to stand on its own feet, it did not unlearn the habit of leaning on the government for advancement rather than relying on its own efforts. On its part the autocratic government was loath to let industry alone. The government generously dispensed to the capitalists tariff protection and bounties in the form of profitable orders, but insisted on keeping industry under its thumb. And though they might chafe, still the capitalists ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman

... an old world. It has never had peace. It has been rocking and swaying like an ocean, and Europe—poor Europe!—has always lived under the menace of the sword. When this war began two-thirds of Europe were under autocratic rule. It is the other way about now, and democracy means peace. The democracy of France did not want war; the democracy of Italy hesitated long before they entered the war; the democracy of this country shrank from it—shrank and shuddered—and never would have entered the caldron had ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... Successful or unsuccessful in its effect, it would run into many thousands of dollars. The physician acknowledged himself dreadfully perplexed; he racked his brain uselessly, yearning meanwhile for the autocratic power to compel obedience among his men. He would have forced them back to their jobs had there been a way, and the fact that they were duped only ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach

... She was no longer the gracious and smiling hostess, as her familiar friends knew her, both at Tallyn and in London. Her manner threw a sudden light on certain features in her history: Marsham's continued dependence on his mother and inadequate allowance, the autocratic ability shown in the management of the Tallyn household and estates, management in which Marsham was allowed practically no share at all, and other traits and facts long known to him. The gentle, scrupulous, composed ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Lalage must be president of the A.T.R.S. and be possessed of autocratic powers. Hilda crossed the road without a murmur. Selby-Harrison, I have no doubt, would have acted in the same way if ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham

... in mock defense Against the snow-balls' compliments, And reading in each missive tost The charm which Eden never lost. We heard once more the sleigh-bells' sound; And, following where the teamsters led, The wise old Doctor went his round, Just pausing at our door to say, In the brief autocratic way Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, Was free to urge her claim on all, That some poor neighbor sick abed At night our mother's aid would need. For, one in generous thought and deed, What mattered in the ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... been done out of pure devotion to the "cause." Nothing could have pleased him more than to give his whole time to the work while his great love and admiration for Raeburn eminently qualified him for the service of a somewhat autocratic master. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... the attempt of England to wield an autocratic power over her Colonies had shattered the attempt of its king to establish an autocratic power over England itself. The Ministry which bore the name of Lord North had been a mere screen for the administration of George the Third, and its ruin was the ruin of the system he had striven to build up. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green

... scorn, and the leader of Society smiled. One thing Mrs. Toplady had learnt which interested her, that her autocratic friend's faith in Dyce Lashmar as a "coming man" was unaffected and sturdy. She mused upon this. Rivenoak had often supplied entertainment to her sportive mind; now, as shadows of night were gathering over it, there seemed to be preparing in this ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... in other European countries, have driven the rural inhabitants of entire districts, and even provinces, into habits of drunkenness stronger and more general than those which existed before the autocratic creation ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... masters of slaves, but till now only on a limited scale. But even on this limited scale no entirely satisfactory scheme of civil-service administration has anywhere been worked out. Of late years more and more have the autocratic powers of public bodies as employers been considerably clipped, but on the other hand, the ironclad rules which make change of occupation, whether for promotion or otherwise, necessary discipline and even deserved dismissal, so difficult to bring about, have prejudiced the ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... Alexander, then in his twenty-third year, found all the authority, military and civil, in Russian hands. The history of the earlier portion of his reign is marked by two principal features—a strong Bulgarian reaction against Russian tutelage and a vehement struggle against the autocratic institutions which the young ruler, under Russian guidance, endeavoured to inaugurate. Both movements were symptomatic of the determination of a strong-willed and egoistic race, suddenly liberated from secular oppression, to enjoy to the full the moral and material privileges of liberty. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various



Words linked to "Autocratic" :   bossy, domineering, undemocratic, autocrat



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com