absolute

absolute 1 *pure, simple, sheer

Analogous words: *perfect, whole, entire: *real, true: *abstract, ideal: *consummate, finished

Antonyms: mixed, qualified

Contrasted words: incomplete (see affirmative adjective at FULL): imperfect, unentire, unintact (see affirmative adjectives at PERFECT)

2 Absolute, autocratic, arbitrary, despotic, tyrannical, tyrannous mean exercising power or authority without external restraint.

Absolute does not of itself add any further implication to this general denotation. It is restricted in application chiefly to words for authority or for one in authority

{

an absolute monarch

}

{

absolute control

}

{

they held their subjects with an absolute hand as all communistic leaders do— F. M. Brown

}

Autocratic implies assumption or exercise of absolute power or authority; though it is not necessarily opprobrious, it often connotes egotistical consciousness of power and haughty imposition of one’s own will

{

let the Emperor turn his nominal sovereignty into a real central and autocratic power— Belloc

}

Arbitrary implies the exercise and usually the abuse of power in accord with one’s opinion of the moment, free of such reasoned guides as constitution and laws which make for consistent and reasonably predictable action

{

all the constitutional safeguards of English freedom were swept away. Arbitrary taxation, arbitrary legislation, arbitrary imprisonment were powers claimed without dispute and unsparingly used by the Crown— J. R. Green

}

Despotic and tyrannical are stronger than autocratic, despotic implying the arbitrary and imperious exercise of absolute power or control and tyrannical the abuse of such power or control frequently through harshness, oppression, or severity

{

the most despotic system of government that history has ever known, Bolshevism, parades as the very incarnation of the principles of equality and liberty of all men— Von Mises

}

{

proofs . . . that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel as any king . . . possessed of uncontrollable power— Adams

}

{

how could I have borne to become the slave of her tyrannical humors?— Burney

}

Tyrannous is more frequently used of things than of persons

{

a . . . skeptical smile, of all expressions the most tyrannous over a susceptible mind— George Eliot

}

Analogous words: *totalitarian, authoritarian: *dictatorial, magisterial: domineering, imperious, *masterful

Antonyms: restrained: limited

Contrasted words: circumscribed, restricted (see LIMIT vb): irresponsible, unanswerable, unamenable (see affirmative adjectives at RESPONSIBLE)

3 *ultimate, categorical

Analogous words: ideal, transcendent, transcendental (see ABSTRACT): independent, autonomous, *free, sovereign: *infinite, eternal, boundless

Antonyms: conditioned

Contrasted words: relative, *dependent, conditional, contingent: circumscribed, limited, restricted (see LIMIT vb)