tin-pot dictator
Small-time authoritarian ruler
A tin-pot dictator is a petty authoritarian ruler, typically of a small or weak nation, who wields absolute power but commands little real influence or respect on the world stage.
The tin-pot suggests something cheap and flimsy—all show, no substance: He runs the place like a tin-pot dictator, issuing decrees about the break room coffee.
- Idi AminUgandan military dictator
- authoritarianFavoring absolute control
- blowhardBoastful empty talker
- warlordMilitary ruler by force
- repressiveTending to suppress
petty tyrant · Augusto Pinochet · Ferdinand Marcos · Kim Jong-il · medals · tinhorn · kleptocracy · pompous · big man · autocracy · strutting · charlatan · cult of personality · puppet · palace coup · undemocratic · buffoon · megalomaniac
tin-pot dictatorconstitutional monarch
Sovereign bound by law
elder statesman · founding father · liberator · George Washington · Nelson Mandela
tin-pot dictatorworld leader
National chief executive
emperor · hegemon · empire builder · Caesar · Napoleon
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