ty·ran·ni·cal

(tĭ-răn′ĭ-kəl, tī-) also ty·ran·nic (-răn′ĭk)

adj.

1. Of or relating to a tyrant or tyranny: a tyrannical government.

2. Characteristic of a tyrant or tyranny; despotic and oppressive: a tyrannical supervisor. See Synonyms at dictatorial.

ty·ran′ni·cal·ly adv.

ty·ran′ni·cal·ness n.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Adj.

tyrannic - characteristic of an absolute ruler or absolute rule; having absolute sovereignty; "an authoritarian regime"; "autocratic government"; "despotic rulers"; "a dictatorial rule that lasted for the duration of the war"; "a tyrannical government"

authoritarian, autocratic, tyrannical, despotic, dictatorial

undemocratic - not in agreement with or according to democratic doctrine or practice or ideals; "the union broke with its past undemocratic procedures"

tyrannic

adjective

1. Having and exercising complete political power and control:

absolute, absolutistic, arbitrary, autarchic, autarchical, autocratic, autocratical, despotic, dictatorial, monocratic, totalitarian, tyrannical, tyrannous.

2. Characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority:

authoritarian, autocratic, despotic, dictatorial, totalitarian, tyrannical.

Translations

tyrannic(al)

adj, tyrannically

adv → tyrannisch

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

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References in classic literature

A fourth method is for every person to deliberate upon every subject in public assembly, where the magistrates can determine nothing of themselves, and have only the privilege of giving their opinions first; and this is the method of the most pure democracy, which is analogous to the proceedings in a dynastic oligarchy and a tyrannic monarchy.

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It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth, it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to; but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were accomplished.

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I tell ye, yeomen, that even those among ye who have been branded with outlawry have had from me protection; for I have pitied their miseries, and curst the oppression of their tyrannic nobles.

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Victorious deeds Flamed in my heart, heroic acts--one while To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke; Then to subdue and quell, o'er all the earth, Brute violence and proud tyrannic power, Till truth were freed, and equity restored: Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first By winning words to conquer willing hearts, And make persuasion do the work of fear; At least to try, and teach the erring soul, Not wilfully misdoing, but unware Misled; the stubborn only to subdue.

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The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!

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The blue-and-silver garden, like a scene in a theatre, seemed to taunt him with all that tyrannic tenderness against which his worldly authority was at war.

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And can I then but pray Others may never feel tyrannic sway?

Continuities with the past/blueprints for the future: scholarly, professional, and activist strategies for the new century

The unconscious as bodied forth in the minutiae of Weimar film is 'haunted by the alternative images of tyrannic rule and instinct-governed chaos'.

Film as memory: Siegfried Kracauer's psychological history of German 'National Culture'

In Robertson's menacing insistence ("I will have no reservation!") and his threat to kill Jeanie--and in her brave resistance and resourceful evasion--the tradition of Covenanting defiance to a corrupt and tyrannic authority is replayed in a form that neutralises its political significance.

Conciliation, Resistance and the Unspeakable in The Heart of Mid-Lothian

But he who leans to the king's fancies, instead of law, prefers brutish sensuality before well-ordered discretion."(17) For early modern republican theorists, the paradigm for this triumph of law over tyrannic lust is, significantly enough, Brutus's execution of his sons.

Castigating Livy: the rape of Lucretia and 'The Old Arcadia.'

de Lancey, "that the loyal inhabitants of America -- the truly loyal, those who acted from principle, were the unhesitating supporters of the British government in its unjustifiable and tyrannic invasions of the rights and liberties of its American people.

Kingston and the Loyalists of the "Spring Fleet" of 1783