theocracy
/θiːˈɒkɹəsi/
theocracy noun: government under the control of a state religion.
Noun
theocracy (countable and uncountable, plural theocracies)
- Government under the control of a state religion.
- Near-synonym: clericocracy
- Tibet was a Buddhist theocracy ruled by the Dalai Lama prior to Chinese annexation.
- Synonyms:
- clericocracy
- Rule by a god.
- For quotations using this term, see Citations:theocracy.
theocracy meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Tagalog
theocracy in Hindi
- government under the control of a Church
- धर्मतंत्र dharmatantra
theocracy in Urdu
- دینی طرز حکومت
theocracy in Bengali
- ঈশ্বর, ধর্মীয় নেতাদের শাসন
theocracy in Tagalog
- government under the control of a Church
- teokrasya
More languagesFewer languages
- theocracy in Arabic
- ثِيُقْرَاطِيَّة ṯiyuqrāṭiyya
- theocracy in Malay
- teokrasi
- theocracy in Indonesian
- teokrasi
- theocracy in Persian
- تئوکراسی te'okrâsi
- theocracy in Thai
- เทวาธิปไตย tee-waa-tí-bpà-dtai
- theocracy in Vietnamese
- thần quyền
Synonyms of theocracy
Forms of theocracy
| plural | theocracies |
|---|
Origin of theocracy
From theo- + -cracy, originally from Ancient Greek θεοκρατία (theokratía, “rule of (a) God”), a term coined in the 1st century by Josephus (Against Apion 2.17) in reference to the ancient Israelite polity under the Mosaic covenant. Attested in English from the 1620s, first by John Donne in A Sermon upon the fifth of November 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason: "The Jews were onely under a Theocratie, an immediate government of God..."
Questions about theocracy
- What does theocracy mean?
- Theocracy means government under the control of a state religion.
- What is theocracy in Hindi?
- Theocracy in Hindi is धर्मतंत्र (dharmatantra). See Theocracy meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is theocracy?
- Theocracy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce theocracy?
- Theocracy is pronounced /θiːˈɒkɹəsi/.
- What is the plural of theocracy?
- The plural of theocracy is theocracies.
Words near theocracy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: theocracy (page history and authors); theocracy (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); theocracy (Bengali Wiktionary) (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-theocracy.ogg.
Cite this entry: “theocracy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/theocracy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.