democracy 
de·moc·racy (di mäk′rə sē)
noun pl. -·cies
- government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives; rule by the ruled
- a country, state, etc. with such government
- majority rule
- the principle of equality of rights, opportunity, and treatment, or the practice of this principle
- the common people, esp. as the wielders of political power
Etymology: Fr démocratie < ML democratia < Gr dēmokratia < dēmos, the people (< IE *damos, a division of the people < base *da-, to cut, divide > tide) + kratein, to rule < kratos, strength: see hard
democracy
n.
Government through representation
popular government, republic, commonwealth, representative government, constitutional government, direct democracy, government by the people, self-government, majority rule, tyranny of the majority*; see also government 2.A way of life providing extensive personal rights
justice, the greatest good for the greatest number, equality before the law, popular suffrage, equalitarianism, egalitarianism, republicanism, constitutionalism, parliamentarianism, individual enterprise, laissez faire, rugged individualism, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to work, emancipation, political equality, democratic spirit, social equality, the Four Freedoms*, the American Way*; see also capitalism, equality, freedom 1.Antonyms
autocracy*, dictatorship*, feudalism.
Converse of object
- undermine: Why should we give our votes to the Concertación when their agenda deepens inequality and undermines democracy?
- deepen: The network aims to deepen democracy through greater citizen participation in local governance.
- strengthen: It is hoped that this change will strengthen democracy.
- revitalize: And unless that happens, policies to tackle poverty and revitalize democracy will not succeed.
- reinvigorate: Download our full statement on use of the electoral register Recommendations on mayoral elections ( January 2002 ) In our report Reinvigorating Local Democracy?
- defend: Mr Blair, you talk about the right to bomb others in order to defend democracy.
Preposition: in
- workplace: So formulating negotiation and I&C strategies to deal with this latest development in democracy in the workplace is a smart move.
- country: My Government is firm in our resolve to bring genuine democracy in the country.
- region: Mr. McClellan said that the murder reflects the true nature of those opposed to freedom and democracy in the region.
Adjective modifier
- liberal: We welcome new members to join in the fight for a Liberal Democracy.
- parliamentary: Coverage of the scrutiny process is central to our parliamentary democracy.
- bourgeois: In point of fact, bourgeois democracy is the political formula for free trade, nothing more.
- Western: They were worse both in terms of living standards and human rights than the Western social democracies.
- Athenian: Participation in political life was one of the pillars of Athenian democracy.
- multi-party: During the early 1990s, under pressure from Western aid donors, the Moi government was finally forced to concede to a multi-party democracy.
Modifies a noun
- cookbook: Democracy Cookbook Get the Democracy Cookbook from the Electoral commission.
- movement: The fighting peacock is the symbol of Burma's democracy movement.
Noun used with modifier
- participatory: The AA is proud to have the benefit of an active and participatory democracy.
- multicultural: The widespread belief in the robustness of the rule of law in Britain certainly reflects our reputation as a vibrant multicultural democracy.
- shareholder: And not everyone thinks that shareholder democracy is in such a bad way.
The present crisis of Western democracy is a crisis in journalism.
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshedöthey produced Michelangelo, Leonardo daVinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.
Think of what our Nation stands for, Books from Boots'and country lanes, Free speech, free passes, class distinction, Democracy and proper drains. Lord, put beneathThy special care One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.
Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa!
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
Countries that have soldiers in charge seem, more often than not, to be the ones where democracy is but a flickering candle sitting in an open window with a forecast of rain.
Some comrades apparently find it hard to understand that democracy is just a slogan.
Democracy is not a polite employer The only way out of elective office is to get sick or die or get kicked out.
Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y. But they're both just aspirin.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half the people are right more than half the time.
Democracy isthetheory thatthe commonpeopleknow what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
A democracy must remain at home in all matters that affect the nature of her institutions. Theyare of a nature to call for the undivided attention and devotion of the entire nation.We do not want the racial antipathies or national antagonisms of the Old World transformed to this continentöas they will, should we becomea part of European politics. The people of this country are overwhelmingly for a policy of neutrality.
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
We look forward to the time when this moment will be seen as a turning point: the day when democracy was renewed in Scotland, when we revitalized our place in this our United Kingdom.
The duty of a democracy is to know then what it knows now.
The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itselföalways changing, infinite in its variety, sometimesturbulent and allthemorevaluableforhaving been tested by adversity.
The Soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.
We have the menöthe skillöthe wealthöand above all, the will We must be the great arsenal of democracy.
They that are discontented under monarchy call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy call it oligarchy; so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy call it anarchy, which signifies the want of government; and yet I think no man believes that want of government is any new kind of government.
A total work of art is only possible in the context of the whole of society. Everyone will be a necessary co- creator of a social architecture, and, so long as anyone cannot participate, the ideal form of democracy has not beenreached.Whether peopleare artists, assemblers of machines or nurses, it is a matter of participating in the whole.
In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but its effects.
The states are the laboratories of democracy.
After each war there is a little less democracy to save.
L'amour de la de¤ mocratie est celui de l'e¤ galite¤ . Love of democracy is love of equality.
To state as clearly as may be what means lie readyto develop a property-owning democracy, to bring the industrial and economic status of the wage-earner abreast of his political and educational status, to make democracy stable and four-square.
A modern democracy is a tyranny whose borders are undefined; one discovers how far one can go only by traveling in a straight line until one is stopped.
Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it.
There is one expanding horror in American life. It is that our long odyssey toward liberty, democracy and freedom-for-all may be achieved in such a way that utopia remains forever closed, and we live in freedom and hell, debased of style, not individual from one another, void of courage, our fear rationalized away.
Thus ourdemocracy was, froman early period, themost aristocratic, and our aristocracy the most democratic in the world.
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
Political democracy, as it exists and practically works in America, with all itsthreatening evils, supplies atraining- school for making first-class men. It is life's gymnasium, not of good only, but of all.
The news of the dayas it reaches the newspaper office is an incredible medley of fact, propaganda, rumor, suspicion, clues, hopes, and fears, and the task of selecting and ordering that news is one of the truly sacred and priestly offices in a democracy. For the newspaper isinall literalnessthebibleofdemocracy, the book out of which a people determines its conduct.
She can talk beautifully about democracy but doesn't know how to live democracy.
Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
But, thanks to wine-less and democracy, We've still our stage where truth calls spade a spade!
The trouble in modern democracy is that men do not approach to leadership until they have lost the desire to lead anyone.
So two cheers for democracy: one because it admits varietyand two because it permits criticism. Two cheers are quite enough: there is no occasion to give three. Only Love the Beloved Republic deserves that.
An editor is the uncrowned king of an educated democracy.
The Pressisatoncethe eyeand the earand thetongue of the people.It isthe visible speech, if not the voice, of the democracy. It is the phonograph of the world.
We are a democracy, and there is only one way to get a democracy on its feet in the matter of its individual, its social, its municipal, its State, its National conduct, and that is by keeping the public informed about what is going on.There isnot a crime, there isnot a dodge, there is not a trick, there is not a swindle, there is not a vice which does not live by secrecy.Get these things out in the open, describe them, attack them, ridicule them in the press, and sooner or later public opinion will sweep them away.
I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, Why Democracy means, Everybody but me.
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted on the tested foundations of political liberty.
The worst thing I can sayabout democracy is that it has tolerated the right honourable gentleman [Neville Chamberlain] for four and a half years.
Browse dictionary entries near democracy
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