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oligarchy

oligarchy

17 8.9
A small group of people who have most power in a country or organization
  • noun
  • /ˈɑlɪˌɡɑrki/
translation icon : oligarquía
  • Apartheid was an oligarchy, and no one wants that again.
  • oligarchy and autocracy
  • oligarchy and democracy
  • old oligarchy

It was avoiding having any sort of debt or homage to the oligarchy of his party.

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Examples

  • Early texts were written by authors who were part of the ruling oligarchy.

    Academic text (1992)
  • The small country was ruled by an oligarchy of wealthy landowners who made decisions for the entire population.

  • It's just creating the oligarchy, making poor people poor.

  • But if that does happen, it should not fall in the hands of a few, an oligarchy or a group of people.

  • The government of that oligarchy lasted just four months.

  • The native oligarchy was in firm control at the outbreak of the war.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Sparta, on the other hand, was an oligarchy ruled by a few rich families.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • The parliamentary oligarchy of eighteenth-century Great Britain wasn't, after all, all that useful a model for America.

    Academic text (1990)
  • All of this only enriches the oligarchies of the world at the expense of average people.

    Blog text (15)
  • In the early political ideas of Pericles and Thucydides, Athenian democracy was ranked higher than Sparta's oligarchy, and certainly above tyranny.

    Academic text (2017)

Antonyms

782 1.6

A system of government where people choose leaders by free elections

Compounds

oil oligarchy
  • Literature
9.3

A small group of rich people who control the oil industry and government decisions

How Oligarchic

autocracy
5 8.2
plutocracy
  • Literature
8 9.0
oligarchy
17 8.9
republic
3.4
democracy
782 1.6

Surface Forms

oligarchy singular
oligarchies plural

Morphology

oligarchy = oligarch (transparent) = oligarch + y

Formed by adding the noun-forming suffix '-y' to 'oligarch'; a learner who knows 'oligarch' can readily derive 'rule by a few'.

Etymology

Oligarchy comes from Greek parts oligo- meaning 'few' and -archy meaning 'rule', the same root as in monarch. So an oligarchy is a type of government where a small group of people hold the power.