anarchy
pronunciation
How to pronounce anarchy in British English:
UK [ˈænəki]
How to pronounce anarchy in American English:
US [ˈænərki]
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- Noun:
- a state of lawlessness and disorder (usually resulting from a failure of government)
Word Origin
- anarchy (n.)
- 1530s, from French anarchie or directly from Medieval Latin anarchia, from Greek anarkhia "lack of a leader, the state of people without a government" (in Athens, used of the Year of Thirty Tyrants, 404 B.C., when there was no archon), noun of state from anarkhos "rulerless," from an- "without" (see an- (1)) + arkhos "leader" (see archon). Either the State for ever, crushing individual and local life, taking over in all fields of human activity, bringing with it its wars and its domestic struggles for power, its palace revolutions which only replace one tyrant by another, and inevitably at the end of this development there is ... death! Or the destruction of States, and new life starting again in thousands of centers on the principle of the lively initiative of the individual and groups and that of free agreement. The choice lies with you! [Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921)]
Example
- 1. In the 1990s we encountered both anarchy and oligarchy .
- 2. Through laziness and self-absorption let tqhe republic fall into dictatorship or anarchy .
- 3. A curfew and patrols by troops seemed to curb much of the anarchy .
- 4. The emperors were overthrown and anarchy resulted .
- 5. Ignore it , and possibly face a kind of climate anarchy .