Word.ws English Dictionary

tyrants

tyrants is the plural of tyrant.

tyrants is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tyrant.

Meaning of tyrant

Noun

tyrant (plural tyrants)

  1. (historical, Ancient Greece) A usurper; one who gains power and rules extralegally, distinguished from kings elevated by election or succession.
    • To proue him Tyrant, this reason may suffice, That Henry liueth still.c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  2. (obsolete) Any monarch or governor.
    • Cassius... set tyrants over all Syria.1737, William Whiston translating Josephus, History of the Jewish Wars, I xii §2
  3. A despot; a ruler who governs unjustly, cruelly, or harshly.
    • Tyrannes...be but Gods scourges which he will cast into the fyre when he hath done with them.1587, Philip Sidney and Arthur Golding, A woorke concerning the trewnesse of the christian religion, translating Philippe De Mornay, XII 196
  4. (broadly) Any person who abuses the power of position or office to treat others unjustly, cruelly, or harshly.
    • A plague vpon the Tyrant that I serue1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
  5. (broadly) A villain; a person or thing who uses strength or violence to treat others unjustly, cruelly, or harshly.
    • I was a blasphemar, and a persecuter, and a tyraunt.1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, :[13]
  6. The tyrant birds, members of the family Tyrannidae, which often fight or drive off other birds which approach their nests.
    • The Tyrant... The courage of this little Bird is singular.1731, Mark Catesby, The natural history of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands, I 55
    Synonyms:
    tyrant bird, tyrant flycatcher, tyrant shrike, king bird, bee martin

See all 9 meanings of tyrant

Phrases with tyrants

Questions about tyrants

What is tyrants the plural of?
Tyrants is the plural of tyrant.

Words near tyrants in the dictionary

  1. tyranting
  2. tyrantless
  3. tyrantlike
  4. tyrantries
  5. tyrantry
  6. tyrants
  7. tyrantship
  8. tyrantships
  9. tyrase
  10. tyraunt
  11. tyraunts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tyrants (page history and authors); tyrant (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-tyrants.ogg.

Cite this entry: “tyrants.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tyrants. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.