In the 18th century, the Swedish government made coffee and its paraphernalia (including cups and dishes) illegal for its supposed ties to rebellious sentiment.
TOTALITARIANISM
absolutism, totalitarianism, totalism
(noun) the principle of complete and unrestricted power in government
dictatorship, absolutism, authoritarianism, Caesarism, despotism, monocracy, one-man rule, shogunate, Stalinism, totalitarianism, tyranny
(noun) a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
totalitarianism (countable and uncountable, plural totalitarianisms)
A system of government in which the people have virtually no authority and the state wields absolute control, for example, a dictatorship.
Usage notes
Contentious usage: precise definition, application to specific cases, and distinction from similar terms varies by author. Narrowly, a government in which everything is political and controlled by the state, coined to describe fascism, in contrast to the older terms and concepts of autocracy, dictatorship, and tyranny, which focus more on centralization of power, not its pervasiveness. Later applied to communism by right-wingers and Stalinism by other communists and socialists, to emphasize its commonalities with fascism and Nazism. Sometimes considered an extreme form of authoritarianism, in other cases contrasted with it.
Source: Wiktionary
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
3 July 2025
SENSE
(noun) the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; “in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing”
Coffee Trivia
