totalitarian
nounEtymology From Italian totalitario (“complete, absolute, totalitarian”) + -an. Equivalent to totality + -arian.
1
An advocate of totalitarianism.
- Related terms
- totalitarianism
totalitarian
adjUK /ˌtəʊtalɪˈtɛəɹiən/ · US /ˌtoʊtəlɪˈtɛɹiən/
Etymology From Italian totalitario (“complete, absolute, totalitarian”) + -an. Equivalent to totality + -arian.
1
Of or relating to a system of government where the people have virtually no authority and the state wields absolute control of every aspect of the country, socially, financially, and politically.
- The divine truth is stronger than totalitarian falsehoods.
- Only history can tell us where China will go from here. The Chinese leadership's brutal crackdown on students seeking fundamental democratic rights makes it difficult to chart the future. Those brave students who laid down their lives against the tanks of Tiananmen Square confirmed what I'd always believed: that no totalitarian society can bottle up the instinctive drive of men and women to be free, and that once you give a captive people a little freedom, they'll demand still more.1990, Ronald Reagan, An American Life, Pocket Books, →ISBN, pages 372–373:
2 more examples
- Well, last night these two bouncers / And one of 'em's alright, the other one's the scary one / His way or no way, totalitarian2006, Alex Turner, “From The Ritz To The Rubble”, in Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, performed by Arctic Monkeys:
- Had I travelled the same route by train (the Trans-Siberian Express, say), it would have taken me a week to get there - enough time to notice that the clocks at all the stations along the way (as well as at all other stations in the totalitarian USSR) stubbornly stuck to Moscow Time.2025 November 12, Vitali Vitaliev, “Time travelling”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 68: