How to Use autocrat in a Sentence

autocrat

noun
  • European autocrats once commonly believed that they had received the right to rule directly from God.
  • Both would be peace efforts – but Trump is well known to praise these autocrats.
    — Simone McCarthy, CNN Money, 2 Sep. 2025
  • But when the truth doesn’t make the autocrat look good, the truth-tellers have to be removed.
    — Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 19 June 2019
  • Trump has also always had a thing for autocrats.
    — Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Xi would not want to lose an ally and fellow autocrat like Putin.
    — Stephanie Yang, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2022
  • And so every autocrat ends up purging any kind of critic.
    — Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 23 Jan. 2026
  • Again, fear is the autocrat’s goal, as is simply doing many things every day.
    — Garry Kasparov, The Atlantic, 17 Apr. 2025
  • In the end, Spain’s new king in waiting didn’t want to become an autocrat.
    — Nicholas Casey, New York Times, 10 June 2023
  • Though now seen as an autocrat, Erdogan didn’t start that way.
    — Washington Post, 17 Dec. 2021
  • But what follows the fall of an autocrat isn’t always better.
    — Elizabeth Shackelford, Chicago Tribune, 9 Aug. 2024
  • But, pressed on his next steps, the Russian autocrat was elusive.
    — Robin Wright, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2022
  • The central question is whether the rise of autocrats is reversible.
    — Max Hastings, Twin Cities, 11 Jan. 2026
  • But critics view him as an aspiring autocrat and fear a return to one-man rule.
    — Author: Rami Musa, Samy Magdy, Anchorage Daily News, 3 July 2019
  • One side of the coin being the reformer, the other side of the coin being the autocrat.
    — CBS News, 6 Jan. 2021
  • But the thing about play that feels essential at this point in history is that autocrats hate play.
    — Matt Negrin, Rolling Stone, 20 Sep. 2025
  • Experts say such measures are not likely to be enough to convince the autocrat to turn around his tanks.
    — Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 2022
  • To an aspiring autocrat, power exists so that it can be abused.
    — Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, has been a thorn in the side of regional autocrats for years.
    — Ian Lee, CNN, 13 June 2017
  • At the time, the future autocrat was seen as a potential reformer.
    — David Folkenflik, NPR, 15 Apr. 2026
  • The competition-is-for-losers set never let go of their dream of being autocrats of trade.
    — Cory Doctorow, WIRED, 7 Sep. 2023
  • His tough talk -- the autocrat's calling card -- is also an emblem of his populist man-of-the-people bona fides.
    — Frida Ghitis, CNN, 9 Feb. 2022
  • Trump’s attacks may have raised some doubts in China that Xi’s backing of autocrats is wise.
    — Michael Schuman, The Atlantic, 16 Mar. 2026
  • And the idea that a celebrity would actively want to turn themselves into a fascist autocrat was kind of a crazy idea.
    — Kate Aurthur, Variety, 18 June 2024
  • Vladimir Putin, the most vicious autocrat of this century, rules through tyranny and fear.
    — Fortune, 7 Mar. 2022
  • The idea that speech or thought contrary to the government line could trigger punishment is the dream of autocrats.
    — Jonathan Blitzer, New Yorker, 20 Sep. 2025
  • There’s no moral victory against an autocrat; you just get written out of the next editions of the history books.
    — Garry Kasparov, The New York Review of Books, 28 Jan. 2020
  • The script surrounding the two autocrats’ confab is one of unity and umbrage with the West.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2023
  • One of the biggest changes in the past three decades is the rise of the support network that autocrats and would-be autocrats now enjoy.
    — Nic Cheeseman, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025
  • Putin the Bond villain, the mastermind spy, the autocrat who bestrides the world like a colossus.
    — Michael Kimmage, The New Republic, 9 June 2021
  • As an autocrat whose self coincides with Russia, Putin has grown into the job.
    — Olga Ingurazova, Smithsonian, 29 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'autocrat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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