theocracy · noun — government under the control of a state religion. It carries an Arena rating of 1577, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, theocracy ranks #332 of 17,128 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #982 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #1,677 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #1,920 of 17,107 for Most Storied Words.
theocracy is pronounced /θiːˈɒkɹəsi/.
Why “theocracy” is a great word
A system of government in which religious authorities rule in the name of a deity or a state is governed by immediate divine guidance. From Ancient Greek θεο- (theo-, "god") + -κρατία (-kratía, "rule, power"), coined in the 1st century by Flavius Josephus as θεοκρατία (theokratía, "rule of God") to describe the ancient Israelite polity; first attested in English in the 1620s by John Donne. Unlike "secularism," which insists on a clean partition between altar and state, or "hierocracy," which denotes rule specifically by a clerical caste, theocracy is the total fusion of divine mandate and temporal power. It is the judge quoting scripture to pass a sentence, the tax collector acting as a tithe-gatherer for the temple, and the law itself reading as a sacred text—a world where every civic duty is a religious act, and the nation itself becomes an unceasing prayer, its laws irrevocable and its borders sacred.
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Etymology
From theo- + -cracy, originally from Ancient Greek θεοκρατία (theokratía, “rule of (a) God”), a term coined in the 1st century by Josephus (Against Apion 2.17) in reference to the ancient Israelite polity under the Mosaic covenant. Attested in English from the 1620s, first by John Donne in A Sermon upon the fifth of November 1622. being the Anniversary celebration of our Deliverance from the Powder Treason: "The Jews were onely under a Theocratie, an immediate government of God..."
noun
- Government under the control of a state religion.e.g.“Near-synonym: clericocracy”
- Rule by a god.e.g.“For quotations using this term, see Citations:theocracy.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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