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Tyrannize   Listen
Tyrannize

verb
(past & past part. tyrannized; pres. part. tyrannizing)
1.
Rule a country as a tyrant.  Synonyms: grind down, tyrannise.
2.
Rule or exercise power over (somebody) in a cruel and autocratic manner.  Synonyms: domineer, tyrannise.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tyrannize" Quotes from Famous Books



... received in favor of one another, or too great a deduction is made on account of their being seamen, their case is without remedy; and the captain, knowing this, will be strengthened in that disposition to tyrannize which the possession of absolute power, without the restraints of friends and public opinion, is too ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... itself; and if the constitution secures to minorities and dissenting individuals their natural rights and their equal rights as citizens, they have no just cause of complaint, for the majority in such case has no power to tyrannize over them or to oppress them. But the theory under examination denies that society has any rights except such as it derives from individuals who all have equal rights. According to it, society is itself conventional, and created by ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson

... phrase, exercise an authority that is appalling. When you think of the blood that has been shed in the name of Jesus, when you think of the Holy Roman Empire, "neither holy nor Roman nor imperial," of the constitutional phrases that cloak all sorts of thievery, of the common law precedents that tyrannize over us, history begins to look almost like the struggle of man to emancipate himself from phrase-worship. The devil can quote Scripture, and law, and morality and reason and practicality. The devil can use the public conscience of his time. He does in wars, in racial and religious persecutions; ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann

... for during these years of close companionship the two little girls had learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased; and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes

... despised young women. It almost enraged him to remember that this stately beauty had ever been an impudent little schoolgirl, with a turned-up nose and a red pigtail. In days gone by, Miss Sarah had actually fought and scratched the spoilt boy, who tried to tyrannize over his playmate as he tyrannized over his mother and his aunts. On the other hand, the recollection of those early days also became precious to Peter ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture

... Laurie square his shoulders, and smile with masculine scorn at that insinuation, as he replied, with his "high and mighty" air, "Amy is too well-bred for that, and I am not the sort of man to submit to it. My wife and I respect ourselves and one another too much ever to tyrannize or quarrel." ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott

... peace. There is the record of India, Canada, of Egypt and of South Africa to point to. No person unless steeped to the eye-brows in pro-Germanism can, in the face of that record, assert that Great Britain ever used her military power to oppress the weak, or tyrannize over the people she, of necessity, had to conquer. Why then should Britain be asked to disarm and turn over the business of maintaining the world's peace to the Hun and the Turk? To preach anti-militarism to a British people is to insult ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie

... with which he is endowed, to him the great universe always opens her treasure house. The supply is always equal to the demand,—equal to the demand when the demand is rightly, wisely made. When one comes into the realization of these higher laws, then the fear of want ceases to tyrannize ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... Rufus and by pressing home the charge against him. Feeling that the house was warming to this rhetoric, Marcellus got up as though to leave, exclaiming, 'I am off, Helvidius: I leave you your senate: you can tyrannize over it under Caesar's nose.' Vibius Crispus followed Marcellus, and, though both were angry, their expressions were very different. Marcellus marched out with flashing eyes, Crispus with a smile on his face. Eventually their friends went ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus

... because he wholly despised philosophy, and out of a kind of pride, scoffed at the Greek studies and literature; as, for example, he would say, that Socrates was a prating seditious fellow, who did his best to tyrannize over his country, to undermine the ancient customs, and to entice and withdraw the citizens to opinions contrary to the laws. Ridiculing the school of Isocrates, he would add, that his scholars grew old men before they had done learning with him, as if they were ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... early history, in "The Young Outlaw," are aware; but, on the other hand, he was not extremely bad. He liked fun, even if it involved mischief; and he could not be called strictly truthful nor honest. But he would not wantonly injure or tyrannize over a smaller boy, and there was nothing mean or malicious about him. Still he was hardly the sort of boy a merchant would be likely to select as an office boy, and but for a lucky chance Sam would have been compelled to remain a bootblack or newsboy. One day he found, in an uptown ...
— Sam's Chance - And How He Improved It • Horatio Alger

... reason why a judge should have the power of punishing, for contempt, any more than for any other offence. And it is one of the most dangerous powers a judge can have, because it gives him absolute authority in a court of justice, and enables him to tyrannize as he pleases over parties, counsel, witnesses, and jurors. If a judge have power to punish for contempt, and to determine for himself what is a contempt, the whole administration of justice (or injustice, if he choose to make it so) ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner

... pleasant, well-bred young fellow, with a fund of good humor and drollery, and a pair of honest eyes that people learned to trust. Every one liked him, and no one ever said a word in his dispraise; and for the rest, he could tyrannize as royally as any other young man who is his ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey

... surprised at his writing to you in such a manner! The fact is, my late husband's attachment for him was so extreme that he now presumes upon a supposed right that he has over me—he fancies I am really his sister, and that he can tyrannize, as brothers sometimes do! I really regret I have been so patient with him—I have allowed ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... secret sins— He trembles on the precipice of fate. Fall'n guilty tyrant! murder'd by thy rage, How many an innocent victim's blood has stain'd Fair freedom's altar! Sylla-like thy hand Mark'd down the virtues, that, thy foes removed, Perpetual Dictator thou might'st reign, And tyrannize o'er France, and call it freedom! Long time in timid guilt the traitor plann'd His fearful wiles—success embolden'd sin— And his stretch'd arm had grasp'd the diadem Ere now, but that the coward's heart recoil'd, Lest France awaked, should ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... this kind, as well as its too great minuteness and complication, it is attended with very considerable expenses, and renders it necessary to keep on foot a whole army of guards and clerks, who tyrannize over and harass the people without any real motive for such great scrupulosity and profusion. I make this observation because I cannot help thinking that the same results might nearly be obtained, by adopting ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... tyrannous: A mightie Hunter thence he shall be styl'd Before the Lord, as in despite of Heav'n, Or from Heav'n claming second Sovrantie; And from Rebellion shall derive his name, Though of Rebellion others he accuse. Hee with a crew, whom like Ambition joyns With him or under him to tyrannize, Marching from Eden towards the West, shall finde 40 The Plain, wherein a black bituminous gurge Boiles out from under ground, the mouth of Hell; Of Brick, and of that stuff they cast to build A Citie & ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... by informing the Signory that he has the duke's assurances that the latter has no thought of attempting to deprive Florence of any of her possessions, as "the object of his campaign has not been to tyrannize, but ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini

... could scarcely be excited in the individual; the power to tyrannize would certainly not be delegated by a society neither frenzied by inebriation nor rendered impotent and irrational by disease. Pregnant, indeed, with inexhaustible calamity is the renunciation of instinct, as it concerns our physical nature. Arithmetic cannot enumerate, nor ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... law. Let them not be confounded nor mixed. Enough that one neither mar nor prejudice the law of the other, since it is not just that the sense outrage the law of reason. And verily it is a shameful thing that one should tyrannize over the other, particularly where the intellect is a pilgrim and strange, and the sense is more domesticated and at home. I am forced by you, my thoughts, to remain at home in charge of the house, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... written constitutions, with powers limited and clearly defined therein. The people, through their chosen representatives, wielding the whole power of the national organization, could not be expected to tyrannize over themselves. Experience, however, soon proved that the tyranny of the majority in popular governments is to be guarded against quite as carefully as that of despotic rulers in any other form of polity. For, says Mr. Mill, 'when society is itself the tyrant—society ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... Storms to tyrannize over his superior officer in this fashion, but stern necessity compelled him to become the real captain. The intention of the mate when he first followed his friend was to dig up the pearls and give him his share, but he saw that that ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... Administration Building for the architectural laurels of the Fair. South of the Illinois Building rose the Woman's Building, and next Horticultural Hall, with dome high enough to shelter the tallest palms. The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building, of magnificent proportions, did not tyrannize over its neighbors, though thrice the size of St. Peter's at Rome, and able easily to have sheltered the Vendome Column. It was severely classical, with a long perspective of arches, broken only at the corners and in the centre by portals fit ...
— Official Views Of The World's Columbian Exposition • C. D. Arnold

... can no more spell than old Ned Skene can. What was a worse sort of ignorance was that I had no idea of fair play. I thought that all servants would be afraid of me, and that all grown-up people would tyrannize over me. I was afraid of everybody; afraid that my cowardice would be found out; and as angry and cruel in my ill-tempers as cowards always are. Now you'll hardly believe this; but what saved me from going to the bad altogether was my finding ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... in confinement, the glue which smears his wings, chains which bind fast his hands, stocks which fix his feet, veil which hides his view. Let him not be servant, captive, ensnared, chained, idle, stolid and blind, for the body which he himself abandons cannot tyrannize over him, so that thus, the spirit in a certain degree comes before him as the corporeal world, and matter is subject to the divinity and to nature. Thus will he become strong against fortune, magnanimous towards injuries, intrepid towards ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno

... does not know how ruthlessly women will tyrannize when they are let to domineer? and who does not know how useless advice is? I could give good counsel to my descendants, but I know they'll follow their own way, for all their grandfather's sermon. A man gets his own experience about women, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... called her just now. The frost is upon my head, indeed; hers winter has not touched with its softest breath. Her footfall is the lightest, her laugh the merriest in the house. The boys are all in love with their mother; the girls tyrannize and worship her together. The cadet corps elects her an honorary member, for no stouter champion of the flag is in the land. Sometimes when she sings with the children I sit and listen, and with her voice there comes to me as an echo of the long past the words in her letter, that ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis

... no crime greater in princes," said Maximilian, "than to tyrannize over the consciences of their subjects. By shedding the blood of heretics, far from honoring the common Father of all, they incur the divine vengeance; and while they aspire, by such means, to crowns in heaven, they justly expose themselves to the loss ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott

... Isn't it a fair fight? Don't you want anybody to sit down or stand up till you tell them to? Is it your view you shall tyrannize, browbeat, batter, and then that everybody you love, or pretend to love, shall bow down before you as though you were eternal law? I'm glad I didn't. I'm making my own life. You gave me a chance in your business, and I tried it, and declined it. You gave it to some one else, and I approved ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... disfavour by the small states, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland, which were so situated that they never could expand in any direction. They looked forward with dread to a future in which New York and Virginia might wax powerful enough to tyrannize over their smaller neighbours. But of these protesting states it was only Maryland that fairly rose to the occasion, and suggested an idea which seemed startling at first, but from which mighty and unforeseen consequences were soon to follow.[5] It ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske

... years the rulers of Germany, true to the Prussian tradition, strove for a position of dominance in Europe. They required that they should be able to dictate and tyrannize to a subservient Europe, as they dictated ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... her theatre tickets every week, and placed a horse and phaeton at her disposal. She was enjoying herself and seeing less and less of Blanche. He took the child to Bournemouth for a fortnight, and again to Scotland, both of which outings benefited as much as they pleased her. She had begun to tyrannize over him amiably, and she carried herself quite royally. But she was always sweet and truthful, and these qualities, combined with that something in the depths of her mind which defied his explorations, held him captive. She was devoted to him, ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton

... something that gazes like the eagle and strikes like lightning, all the mysteries of a profound mind, associated with destiny; the river, the plain, the forest, and the hill summoned, and, to some extent, compelled to obey; the despot going so far as even to tyrannize over the battlefield; faith in a star, blended with a strategic ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various

... We learn from a letter to Cornificius that Antony left the city shortly afterward, and went down to Brundisium to look after the legions which had come across from Macedonia, with which Cicero asserts that he intends to tyrannize over them all in Rome.[204] He then tells his correspondent that young Octavius has just been discovered in an attempt to have Antony murdered, but that Antony, having found the murderer in his house, had not dared to complain. ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope

... experiences in this voyage, some of which have been of no small value subsequently. But the best lesson was the optimism and contentment of one's fellows, who had apparently so few of the things that only tyrannize the lives of those who live for them. They were a simple, kindly, helpful people, living in a country barren and frigid beyond all others, with no trees except in one extreme corner of the island. The cows were literally ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... here that manly boys generally do like children, and I haven't much respect for those who will tease or tyrannize over them. ...
— Chester Rand - or The New Path to Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr

... worshiping idols, you will make slow progress to wealth or fame, as you will let petty things tyrannize ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller

... Zandam, which is by the Zuider Zee, there lived a wicked man named Nicholas Snyders. He was mean and hard and cruel, and loved but one thing in the world, and that was gold. And even that not for its own sake. He loved the power gold gave him—the power to tyrannize and to oppress, the power to cause suffering at his will. They said he had no soul, but there they were wrong. All men own—or, to speak more correctly, are owned by—a soul; and the soul of Nicholas Snyders was an evil soul. He lived in the old windmill which still is standing on the quay, ...
— The Soul of Nicholas Snyders - Or, The Miser Of Zandam • Jerome K. Jerome

... that the Earth bore fruits, and flowres, Without the toyle or care of Man, And Serpents were from poyson free;... But therefore only happy Dayes, Because that vaine and ydle name, That couz'ning Idoll of unrest, Whom the madd vulgar first did raize, And call'd it Honour, whence it came To tyrannize or'e ev'ry brest, Was not then suffred to molest Poore lovers hearts with new debate; More happy they, by these his hard And cruell lawes, were not debar'd Their innate freedome; happy state; The goulden lawes of ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... no perfect characters. Even his good women, such as Helen and Laura Pendennis, are capable of cruel injustice toward less fortunate sisters, like little Fanny; and Amelia Sedley is led, by blind feminine instinct, to snub and tyrannize over poor Dobbin. The shabby miseries of life, the numbing and belittling influences of failure and poverty upon the most generous natures, are the tragic themes which Thackeray handles by preference. He has been called a cynic, but the boyish playfulness of his humor and his kindly ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... boasting, it is remarkable how seldom Confucius himself claims any superiority above his fellow-creatures. He offers his advice to those who are willing to listen, but he never speaks dogmatically; he never attempts to tyrannize over the minds or hearts of his friends. If we read his biography, we can hardly understand how a man whose life was devoted to such tranquil pursuits, and whose death scarcely produced a ripple on the smooth and silent surface of the Eastern world, could have ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller

... ordinances. They are taken out of the Hotel-de-Ville, led to the marketplace, and there forthwith, under the dictation of the uproar which establishes prices, they, like simple clerks, proclaim the reduction. When, moreover, the armed rabble of a village marches forth to tyrannize over a neighboring market, it carries its mayor along with it in spite of himself, as an official instrument which belongs to it.[3225] "There is no resistance against force," writes the mayor of Vert-le-Petit; "we had to set forth immediately."—" They assured ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... you view this matter in a rational light. I do not say that the wisest, the richest, or the strongest man in this world has any right to tyrannize over his neighbour, because he is the more weak, ignorant, and the poorer; but yet if he does enter into such a controversy, he must submit to the course of nature, and that will always give the advantage in the tide of battle to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... of Ireland the speaker was, to be too hypothetical. To many Englishmen the case seemed to be one of two hostile factions contending in Ireland for the last sixty years, and that the gift of self-government might enable one of them to tyrannize over the other. True, that party was the majority, and, according to the principles of democratic government, therefore entitled to prevail. But it is one thing to admit a principle and another to consent to its application. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... I fancy the Harewood boys set him on. And what I thought of was sending Adrian here to be schooled at Mrs. Edgar's, boarded by you, mothered by Anna, and altogether saved from being made utterly detestable, as he will inevitably be if he remains to tyrannize over Vale Leston." ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge



Words linked to "Tyrannize" :   browbeat, ballyrag, bullyrag, boss around, domineer, dictate, bully, tyrant, tyrannise, push around, strong-arm, hector



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