oligarchy.

Government or control exercised by a small, powerful group.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• ruling oligarchy
• entrenched oligarchy

On the page

An entrenched oligarchy resisted the proposed limits on officeholding.

Usage notes

Primary category: economics / business / social science. Forms: Countable or uncountable by context; countable singular oligarchy; plural oligarchies. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: analysis, evaluation, business. Commonness: moderately common.