tyrann-, tyranni-, tyran-

Anyone who despises or detests tyranny: The misotyrannists are completely against a government that treats people in a cruel and unjust way by using military or police forces to control them.

1. May it ever thus be to tyrants; Thus always to tyrants.
2. Motto of the State of Virginia, U.S.A.
3. There are some who say these words were shouted by John Wilkes Booth as he leaped to the stage after shooting President Abraham Lincoln. Other witnesses thought he said something else; for example, it is said that he added, "The South is avenged."

The female form of tyrant; a female tyrant.

1. Like a tyrant; that is, harsh, despotic, and arbitrary.
2. Etymology: formed in English from Latin tyrannicus, "like a tyrant, despotic"; from Greek tyrannikos, "of or pertaining to a tyrant"; from tyrannos, tyrant.

A reference to the killing of a tyrant.

1. The slayer of a tyrant.
2. Killing a tyrant.

Like a tyrant; tyrannical.

1. To exercise power cruelly or unjustly: Pamela's husband tyrannized her in a very brutal and domineering manner.
2. To rule with absolute power: In some countries, leaders are very similar to dictators and they oppress and tyrannize their citizens without justification.
3. Etymology: from Greek turannos, "a lord, a master, a king"; especially, "an absolute master or ruler." © ALL rights are reserved.

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A hatred of tyrants: Jim, who lived in a country ruled by a dictator, decided to move to a country far away because he had tyrannophobia and didn't want to live under the rulership of an oppressor.

The “tyrant lizards” included some of the biggest flesh-eating land animals of all time. They are believed to have lived during the Late Cretaceous period.

A “tyrant (despot) lizard” from Late Cretaceous western North America and China. This fossil has also been called Dynamosaurus, Tarbosaurus, and Manospondylus. Named by U. S. paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1905.

"Tyrant lizard king" was a giant carnivorous theropod dinosaur from the Upper Maastrichtian, the last stage of the Cretaceous period, 65 to 66 million years ago. T. rex is probably the best known carnivorous dinosaur, particularly because it is believed to be the largest to have ever existed.

A large carnivorous bipedal dinosaur having enormous teeth with knifelike serrations and may have been a scavenger rather than an active predator.

Despotic, tyrannical.

1. Absolute power arbitrarily or unjustly administered; despotism.
2. An arbitrarily cruel exercise of power; a tyrannical act.
3. In Greek history, the office or the administration of a tyrant.
4. Severity; roughness.
5. Etymology: from Old French tyrannie, from Late Latin tyrannia, "tyranny"; which came from Greek tyrannia, from tyrannos, "master, tyrant".

1. Someone who rules oppressively or cruelly; a despot: The tyrant, or dictator, in the country governed in an unconstrained way with great power, and not by any law.
2. Anyone who exercises absolute power without legal warrant, whether ruling well or in a bad way: In Ancient Greece the tyrant, or swayer, had absolute authority and seized legitimate supremacy over the country, as Peisistratos, who succeeded as a tyrant in Athens in 546 B.C.
3. Etymology: from Latin tyrannus, "lord, master, tyrant"; which came from Greek tyrannos, "lord, master, sovereign, absolute ruler". © ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.