Definition
A country ruled by a tin-pot dictator; an autocracy, especially one ruled by someone with delusions of grandeur.
Origins
From tin-pot dictator + -ship.
In Context
- "And, if so, why not the arms-dealer who sells his products to some tin-pot dictatorship, knowing that they will be used to slaughter innocent women and kids?"
- "Though venality rather than thuggery is the dominant characteristic of the Gabonese political system, to an outsider the distinction is not always clear and the country can look like a classic tin-pot dictatorship—a sort of banana republic (with the part of the bananas played by Cameroonian understudies)"
- "Speaking of the suspension of habeas corpus, and the curbs on the press, he warned that Mrs Gandhi was turning her country into a 'tin-pot dictatorship'."