absolutism

[ ab-suh-loo-tiz-uhm ]
See synonyms for: absolutismabsolutisticabsolutist on Thesaurus.com

noun
  1. the principle or the exercise of complete and unrestricted power in government.

  2. any theory holding that values, principles, etc., are absolute and not relative, dependent, or changeable.

Origin of absolutism

1
First recorded in 1745–55

Other 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

  • He had stripped the magical prestige from the absolutist monarchy in France.

  • It will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere friendship, as in the code of many a radical.

    The Hearth-Stone | Samuel Osgood
  • Socialism would introduce, indeed, the most vexatious and all-encompassing absolutist government ever invented.

  • He was a statesman and he wanted to make the empire into a real state of the absolutist type.

    Folkways | William Graham Sumner
  • They 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

absolutism

/ (ˈæbsəluːˌtɪzəm) /


noun
  1. the principle or practice of a political system in which unrestricted power is vested in a monarch, dictator, etc; despotism

  2. 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)

  1. 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