Authoritarian

How to spell authoritarian

13 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce authoritarian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does authoritarian mean?

1. adjectiveFavouring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.
2. nounA person who favours strict obedience to authority rather than individual freedom.

Authoritarian in a sentence

• adjective

  The new manager ran the department in an authoritarian way, allowing no debate.

• noun

  Critics labelled him an authoritarian for silencing the press.

• adjective

  Historians describe the regime as deeply authoritarian, with no free elections.

• noun

  As an authoritarian, she expected every rule to be followed without question.

Where does authoritarian come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word ultimately traces back to the Latin auctor, meaning an originator, promoter, or master, the same root that gives us 'author' and 'authority'. Auctor came from the verb augere, which literally meant 'to increase' or 'to make grow', so the original idea was of someone who causes something to grow or come into being, and by extension someone with the power to enforce it. English already had 'authority' from the 1300s by way of Old French autorite, and 'authoritarian' was then built much later, appearing in the nineteenth century, by adding the suffix -arian (as in 'libertarian' or 'humanitarian') to describe a person or system favouring strict obedience to authority. The political sense of demanding absolute submission to a ruling power solidified through twentieth-century writing about dictatorships. For spelling, it helps to remember the buried word 'author' at the front and the 'auth-ority' link, because the trap is the unstressed middle (au-thor-i-TAR-i-an) where the second 'i' and the 'tar' easily blur together.

How the word is built

• author- (from Latin auctor: originator, master)
• -ity (noun-forming)
• -arian (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'one who advocates or favours')