Tyranny

How to spell tyranny

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce tyranny

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tyranny mean?

1. nounCruel, unjust, and absolute use of power by a ruler or governing authority.

Tyranny in a sentence

• The rebellion began as a protest against years of tyranny.

• The new constitution was designed to prevent any single leader from imposing tyranny.

Where does tyranny come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word descends from the Greek tyrannos, a noun meaning 'absolute ruler' or 'one who seizes power'. In its earliest Greek use the term was not automatically negative; it simply described a person who took sole control of a city without inheriting the throne, and only later did it gather its sense of cruel, oppressive rule. The Greeks formed tyrannia for the condition of such rule, and this passed into Latin as tyrannia and then into Old French as tyrannie before reaching English in the 1300s. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the single letter at the start gives way to a doubled 'r' inherited straight from the Greek tyrannos, while the ending settles into the familiar '-ny' that signals a state of being. The same root still shows itself in 'tyrant' and 'tyrannical', and remembering that family keeps the double 'r' in place.

How the word is built

• tyrann- (from Greek tyrannos: absolute ruler)
• -y (noun suffix denoting a state or condition)