totalitarian

From Italian totalitario (“complete, absolute, totalitarian”) +‎ -an. Equivalent to totality +‎ -arian.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌtəʊtalɪˈtɛəɹiən/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌtoʊtəlɪˈtɛɹiən/
• Rhymes: -ɛəɹiən

totalitarian (comparative more totalitarian, superlative most totalitarian)

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.

   • 1990, Ronald Reagan, An American Life‎, Pocket Books, →ISBN, pages 372–373:

     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.

totalitarian (plural totalitarians)

1. An advocate of totalitarianism.

• totalitarianism