dictator
Syllables: dic·ta·torUK/dɪkˈteɪtə//ˈdɪkˌteɪtəɹ/
dictator noun: an authoritarian leader of a country, nation, or government. Also the misspelling of dictater.
Noun
dictator (plural dictators)
- An authoritarian leader of a country, nation, or government.
- The Dominicans had lived for thirty years under the iron-fisted rule of dictator Leonidas Trujillo. During those years, which ended with Trujillo's assassination in 1961, those who opposed Trujillo had three choices: to go into exile, to go underground, or to remain quiet. Most Dominicans had...1971, Lyndon Johnson, “A Time of Testing: Crises in the Caribbean”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 188
- Dictator, noun : someone who doesn't let American CEOs dictate how their country is run2019, (Existential Comics), 29 January, 9:27 AM Tweet
- A magistrate without colleague in republican Ancient Rome, who held full executive authority for a term granted by the Senate, typically to conduct a war.
- A tyrannical boss or authority figure.
Also used as
dictator is also the misspelling of dictater.
dictator meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali
dictator in Hindi
- authoritarian leader of a dictatorship
- तानाशाह tānāśāh, अधिनायक adhināyak
- tyrannical boss, or authority figure
- अधिनायक adhināyak
dictator in Marathi
- authoritarian leader of a dictatorship
- हुकुमशहा hukūmśahā
dictator in Urdu
- authoritarian leader of a dictatorship
- ڈِکْٹیٹَر ḍikṭeṭar, آمِر āmir, تاناشاہ tānāśāh
dictator in Bengali
- authoritarian leader of a dictatorship
- একনায়ক eknaẏok
More languagesFewer languages
- dictator in Pashto
- ديکتاتور diktātor, ډيکټاټور ḍikṭaṭor
- dictator in Tagalog
- diktador
- dictator in Arabic
- دِكْتَاتُور diktātūr, دِكْتَاتُورَة diktātūra
- dictator in Malay
- diktator
- dictator in Indonesian
- diktator
- dictator in Thai
- ผู้มีอำนาจ pûu-mii-am-nâat, จอมบงการ jɔɔm-bong-gaan, จอมเผด็จการ jɔɔm-pà-dèt-gaan
- dictator in Vietnamese
- kẻ độc tài, nhà độc tài
- dictator in Myanmar
- အာဏာရှင် anahrang, သက်ဦးဆံပိုင် sak-u:hcampuing
Examples of dictator in a sentence
- The Dominicans had lived for thirty years under the iron-fisted rule of dictator Leonidas Trujillo.1971, Lyndon Johnson, “A Time of Testing: Crises in the Caribbean”, in The Vantage Point, Holt, Reinhart & Winston, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC...
- What dictators fear most is losing the support of the armed forces, and when this happens, it's as if a ferocious beast has lost its teeth.2020 September 23, Shi Chuan, “When Police Officers No Longer Work for Dictators”, in Minghui, archived from the original on 13 Nov 2021:
- One of their book’s heroes is the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who overthrew the democratic Second Spanish Republic in the country’s 1930s civil war.2024 August 5, Michelle Goldberg, “JD Vance Just Blurbed a Book Arguing That Progressives Are Subhuman”, in The New York Times, New York...
Forms of dictator
| plural | dictators |
|---|---|
| alternative form (obsolete) | dictatour |
Origin of dictator
From Latin dictātor (“a chief magistrate”), from dictō (“dictate, prescribe”), from dīcō (“say, speak”). By surface analysis, dictate + -or, literally “one who dictates”. Compare Old English tictator (“absolute ruler of the Roman Republic”).
Words formed from dictator
Phrases with dictator
Words that rhyme with dictator
- translator
- alligator
- vibrator
- freighter
- terminator
- waiter
- crater
- curator
- gaiter
- incubator
- plater
- pulsator
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- skater
- cater
- collator
- creator
- equator
- escalator
- greater
- later
- relator
- rotator
- collimator
- dilator
- excavator
- frater
- gator
- inflater
- locator
- narrator
- palpator
- saeter
- slater
- traitor
- viator
- awaiter
- baiter
- citator
- corrugator
- dater
- deflator
- dominator
- emasculator
- glossator
- gyrator
- hater
- hydrator
- legator
- levator
- mandator
- mater
- migrator
- negator
- nitrator
- plaiter
- procreator
- spectator
- tater
- titrator
- 'mater
Questions about dictator
- What does dictator mean?
- Dictator means an authoritarian leader of a country, nation, or government.
- What is dictator in Hindi?
- Dictator in Hindi is तानाशाह (tānāśāh), अधिनायक (adhināyak). See Dictator meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use dictator in a sentence?
- The Dominicans had lived for thirty years under the iron-fisted rule of dictator Leonidas Trujillo.
- What part of speech is dictator?
- Dictator is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dictator?
- Dictator is pronounced /dɪkˈteɪtə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of dictator?
- The plural of dictator is dictators.
Words near dictator in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dictator (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-dictator.ogg.
Cite this entry: “dictator.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dictator. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.