absolutism
the principle or the exercise of complete and unrestricted power in government.
any theory holding that values, principles, etc., are absolute and not relative, dependent, or changeable.
Origin of absolutism
1Other words for absolutism
Other words from absolutism
- ab·so·lut·ist, noun, adjective
- ab·so·lu·tis·tic, adjective
- ab·so·lu·tis·ti·cal·ly, adverb
- non·ab·so·lut·ist, noun
- non·ab·so·lu·tis·tic, adjective
- non·ab·so·lu·tis·ti·cal·ly, adverb
- pro·ab·so·lut·ism, noun
- pro·ab·so·lut·ist, adjective, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use absolutism in a sentence
Professional politicians usually keep their distance from absolutist movements.
Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Political Parties | David Frum | October 8, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTHis is the kind of black-and-white, moral absolutist thinking about politics one should grow out of after graduate school.
Julian Assange Loves Rand Paul and His ‘Very Principled Positions’ | Michael Tomasky | August 19, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTThe Saudis fear, probably rightly, that real power sharing is impossible in an absolutist state.
Other countries that banned guns started with a less absolutist attitude towards civil liberties, and also, a lot fewer guns.
There's Little We Can Do to Prevent Another Massacre | Megan McArdle | December 17, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTTaking an absolutist view on temporary cuts would rapidly make the whole pledge untenable.
He had stripped the magical prestige from the absolutist monarchy in France.
The Outline of History: Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind | Herbert George WellsIt will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere friendship, as in the code of many a radical.
The Hearth-Stone | Samuel OsgoodSocialism would introduce, indeed, the most vexatious and all-encompassing absolutist government ever invented.
Contemporary Socialism | John RaeHe was a statesman and he wanted to make the empire into a real state of the absolutist type.
Folkways | William Graham SumnerThey desire to employ it as a tool for their absolutist plans and adventurous world enterprises.
What Germany Thinks | Thomas F. A. Smith
British Dictionary definitions for absolutism
/ (ˈæbsəluːˌtɪzəm) /
the principle or practice of a political system in which unrestricted power is vested in a monarch, dictator, etc; despotism
philosophy
any theory which holds that truth or moral or aesthetic value is absolute and universal and not relative to individual or social differences: Compare relativism
the doctrine that reality is unitary and unchanging and that change and diversity are mere illusion: See also monism (def. 2), pluralism (def. 5b)
Christianity an uncompromising form of the doctrine of predestination
Derived forms of absolutism
- absolutist, noun, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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