ABSOLUTISM • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Absolutism

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/ˈæbsəlˌutˌɪzəm/ Listen

Absolutism

noun

Dominance through threat of punishment and violence. Synonyms: despotism, tyranny.

A form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.). Synonyms: authoritarianism, Caesarism, despotism, dictatorship, monocracy, one-man rule, shogunate, Stalinism, totalitarianism, tyranny.

The principle of complete and unrestricted power in government. Synonyms: totalism, totalitarianism.

The doctrine of an absolute being.

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Etymology of 'Absolutism'

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"Absolutism" Quotes from Famous Books

... Only three years before, he had been one of the foremost orators in the struggle for the Petition of Right. The dagger of Fenton had turned him from an impassioned patriot and constitutionalist into a vehement upholder of absolutism. His revolt had been little more than a mask for his hostility to the hated favourite Buckingham, and when Buckingham's murder cleared the path to his ambition, Wentworth passed, apparently without a struggle, from the zealous champion of liberty to the yet ...

— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... civil service has been organized; the whole fiscal system has been revised; an influential and widely-read newspaper press has grown up with extraordinary rapidity; and government by parliament has been substituted for monarchical absolutism."(1) At the present day, an Englishman travelling in Japan is constantly meeting numbers of his countrymen, intent on either business or pleasure; while at all the principal cities and places of resort, handsome new hotels, fitted ...

— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... too, the remedy for absolutism lies in calling these same minorities to council. As the king-in-council succeeded the king by the grace of God, so in future democracies the toleration and encouragement of minorities and the willingness to consider as "men" the crankiest, humblest and poorest ...

— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... was one of the chief causes of the change by which a much greater personal power was transferred to the hands of the sovereign than he had ever before held, and it is no surprise to see the absolutism of emperors and kings, in Christian Europe, ...

— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... belfry clock chimed "Great is the Lord," and then struck two. The sound of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff's mind what he had read in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a group who attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in Russia at the time of the accession of Nicholas the First] about the way this sweet music repeated every hour re-echoes in the hearts ...

— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy

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