Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tyranny in a sentence

33 example sentences · noun

Tyranny means a government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power, or this system of government; especially, one that acts cruelly and unjustly. Example: “Civil-liberties advocates warned that the expanding surveillance apparatus had created turnkey tyranny.”

Examples of tyranny by meaning

nounA system of government in which power is exercised on behalf of the ruler or ruling class, without regard to the wishes...

  • Control, dispossession, violence, and tyranny are not “defensive”: they are part of an organized, ongoing aggression.2019 April 28, Hagai El-Ad, “What kind of democracy deports human rights workers?”, in Yoni Molad, transl., +972 Magazine

More sentences with tyranny

  • Civil-liberties advocates warned that the expanding surveillance apparatus had created turnkey tyranny.From the entry turnkey tyranny
  • The people have successfully stood up against tyranny and totalitarianism.From the entry people
  • We can guarantee that nobody will dare to return tyranny to our continent.2022 September 30, 3:10 from the start, in Ukraine makes NATO membership bid following Putin's annexation of four Ukrainian regions…. From the entry one another
  • These are the little tyrannies and petty skullduggeries that make bitter the relations between the races.2002, J. Douglas Smith, quoting the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, “Little Tyrannies and Petty Skullduggeries”, in Managing White Supremacy…. From the entry skulduggery
  • Opening act Color Me Badd provided a similarly radical undermining of the tyranny of audiocentrism.1992 July 31, Roland Barthesimpsonne, “Ay! Ay! Ay!”, in Boston Phoenix, volume 21, number 31, Boston, M.A.: Phoenix Media/Communications…. From the entry audiocentrism
  • We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators.1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. From the entry replicator
  • The idea of equality has already launched Communist Russia into perpetrating the tyrannies of levelisation and Bovietisation.1941, Jayendraray Bhagwanlal Durkal, Conservative India. From the entry levelisation
  • Black, the president, didn't wax wroth and condemn, and threaten and talk of tyranny and Communists.1936, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Part 3, Chapter 4. From the entry wroth
  • Within hours, a website whose strapline declares it is “destroying Jewish tyranny” had picked up on the piece.2016 December 14, Michael Hann, “'Fashwave': synth music co-opted by the far right”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 25 Jul…. From the entry reggie
  • It becomes an illusory dream that always evades the fearer while holding him or her tightly in its tyranny.2009, Poul F. Guttesen, Leaning Into the Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theology of Jürgen Moltmann and in the Book of Revelation…. From the entry fearer
  • It cannot put up any resistance to the globalitarian tyranny because it is itself an integral part of it.2001, Theodore Pelagidis, Louka T. Katseli, John Milios, Welfare State and Democracy in Crisis: Reforming the European Model, →ISBN. From the entry globalitarian
  • A popular will not so limited becomes the tyranny of the majority which destroys the freedom of political competition.1957, Hans J. Morgenthau, “The Dilemmas of Freedom”, in The American Political Science Review, volume 51, number 3, page 718. From the entry tyranny of the majority
  • The greatest are not to be found in the ranks of those glorifying tyranny and German world hegemony.1944, Ludwig von Mises, Omnipotent Government, page 265. From the entry Germany
  • Bureaucracy begins as well-meaning grandmotherism and ends as tyranny.1932, Arthur Bryant, The Spirit of Conservatism, page 32. From the entry grandmotherism
  • Everywhere the people would come into their own, and war and tyranny would vanish like a hateful nightmare!1919, Upton Sinclair, chapter 12, in Jimmie Higgins. From the entry come into one's own
  • And conservatives are willing to spend blood and treasure advancing democracy abroad in part because we prize the dignity of those living under tyranny.2026 January 3, Michael Strain, “The battle for the right’s post-Trump future has begun”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd.…. From the entry blood and treasure
  • Besides the Klingon desire for cultural purity, humanity in the Mirrorverse is also shown as a fascistic tyranny (the Terran Empire) centered on racial purity.2020, Ina Batzke, “From Series to Seriality: Star Trek's Mirror Universe in the Post-Network Era”, in Mareike Spychala, Sabrina…. From the entry mirrorverse
  • And it will be turnkey tyranny.2016 November 10, Alex Hern, “Worried about the NSA under Trump? Here's how to protect yourself”, in The Guardian. From the entry turnkey tyranny
  • Like Muslim jihadists, Christian jihadists such as these two are willing to sacrifice as they seek to impose their religious tyranny on others.2009, Robert S. McElvaine, Grand Theft Jesus: The Hijacking of Religion in America, Broadway Books, →ISBN, page 178. From the entry jihadist
  • The biggest problem is the numerically larger group's use of elections and other legitimate democratic forms to ensure its dominance—a tyranny of the majority.2003, Daniel Byman, “Constructing a Democratic Iraq: Challenges and Opportunities”, in International Security, volume 28, number 1, page 52. From the entry tyranny of the majority
  • The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.1994 May 21, Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jules Winnfield (Samuel L[eroy] Jackson). From the entry iniquity
  • The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.1994, Quentin Tarantino, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson). From the entry inequities
  • Is it not crystal clear, then, comrades, that all the evils of this life of ours spring from the tyranny of human beings?1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […]…. From the entry crystal clear
  • "I've waited on you hand and foot, done dirty work for you, put up with your ill-humours and your tyranny, and never grumbled.1914, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 22, in The Vanished Messenger. From the entry worm turns
  • This celebration of freedom and independence was hatched, as May sees it, in revolt against the baby boom and the "tyranny of parentism' as it has been described.2014, Michael Banner, The Ethics of Everyday Life, page 61. From the entry parentism
  • It was as if the Samizdat spirit, extended and intensified by the proliferation of do-it-yourself media, had rendered the centralised, statist tyrannies of the Soviet Union untenable.2006 January, David Garcia, “Learning the Right Lessons”, in Mute, →ISSN. From the entry statist
  • Now it is his daily work to particularize, item by item, the iniquities of the system, and the petty manifestations of the tyranny here in Arras.1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 110. From the entry particularize
  • For us that epic celebration somehow is confined to Thanksgiving Day when we celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims who fled the tyranny of Charles I.1982 October 11, “Our Columbus”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 Aug 2017. From the entry Cathay
  • Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu are not separated from the mainland by the Taiwan Straits but by two inimical systems: one of benevolence and the other of tyranny.1981 October 4, “Peiping's 'new trick' is the same old trick”, in 自由中國週報 [Free China Weekly], volume XXII, number 39, Taipei, →ISSN…. From the entry Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu
  • Congressmen talked of tyranny, and other imaginary horribles, and one vigilant member opposed the six administrative assistants on the ground that they would be "theoretical intellectualprofessorial nincompoops."1976, Otis L. Graham, Jr., Toward a Planned Society: from Roosevelt to Nixon, page 62. From the entry horribles
  • From the alliance has come forth a corrupt but forceful tyranny which undevotedly exploits its parents in order to maintain and extend untrammeled and arbitrary power.1954, Thomas Ira Cook, Power through purpose: the realism of idealism as a basis for foreign policy, Johns Hopkins Press. From the entry undevotedly
  • This interactive book will continue to expand as readers enter into conversation with one another in their quest to overcome Trumpression and take America back from the claws of tyranny.2018 February 21, Chris Lewis, Trumpression: Turning Our Emotions Into #Resistance Power!, Independently Published, →ISBN. From the entry Trumpression

Meaning of tyranny

  1. noun A government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power, or this system of government; especially, one that acts cruelly and unjustly.
  2. noun The office or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler.
  3. noun Absolute power, or its use.

Full definition of tyranny

Questions about tyranny in a sentence

How do you use tyranny in a sentence?
Tyranny is used as a noun. For example: “Civil-liberties advocates warned that the expanding surveillance apparatus had created turnkey tyranny.”
What is a short sentence with tyranny?
“And it will be turnkey tyranny.”
What does tyranny mean?
Tyranny means a government in which a single ruler (a tyrant) has absolute power, or this system of government; especially, one that acts cruelly and unjustly.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tyranny (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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