kakistocracy \kak-uh-STAH-kruh-see\ (noun)

kakistocracy \kak-uh-STAH-kruh-see\ (noun)

: government by the worst people

Example sentence:

The free election won't guarantee an end to kakistocracy,

because none of the candidates have any more integrity than the

corrupt dictator currently in power.

Did you know?

A reader of _Time_ magazine was once so surprised to find

this rare and unusual word in the pages of that publication

that he decided the occasion warranted a letter to the editor.

"Where in the name of Semanticus, did your writer come up with

that word 'kakistocracy,'" he wrote in a letter dated February

6, 1956. "Is it a government of parrots?" (A "kaka" is a New

Zealand parrot.) Good guess, but "kakistocracy" actually

originated as a combination of the Greek "kakistos" (superlative

of "kakos," which means "bad") and the English suffix "-cracy,"

meaning "form of government."