barbarocracy means rule by barbarians. It carries an Arena rating of 1297, earned across 37 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, barbarocracy ranks #106 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,229 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #1,341 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,681 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
Why “barbarocracy” is a great word
BARBAROCRACY — [Noun] Government or rule by those perceived as uncivilized or foreign. From the Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, "foreign, non-Greek, uncivilized") and -κρατία (-kratía, "power, rule"). Unlike bureaucracy, with its labyrinth of ordered procedure, or technocracy, which promises governance by specialized knowledge, barbarocracy signifies the perceived collapse of systems into a brute, unmediated force. It is the ledger book thrown on the fire, the delicate irrigation channel smashed by a club, and the complex law replaced by a chieftain’s word—the sobering spectacle of a delicate order dissolving into a simpler, starker truth.
Etymology
From Latin barbarus (“foreigner, savage”), from Ancient Greek βάρβαρος (bárbaros, “foreign, strange”) + -cracy.
noun
- Rule by barbarians.e.g.“The existing Bavarocracy (the Greeks, who are as fond of puns as ever, used to call it barbarocracy) had become impossible.” — 1846, The Quarterly Review (London), page 314:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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