kakistocracy

kak•i•stoc•ra•cy (kak-uh-STOK-ruh-see)  n

Definition:
government under the control of a nation's worst or least-qualified citizens

Origin:
1829; coined on analogy of aristocracy from Gk. kakistos "worst," superlative of kakos "bad" (which is perhaps related to the general IE word for "defecate") + -cracy

Related:
Related Words: cacophony, aristocracy

Sentence Examples:
• This should be borne in mind by any one who, in the milder light of a later and better era, is disposed to carp at Schiller for caricaturing the nobility. He was not concerned with aristocracy in general, but with the particular kakistocracy that had disgraced his native land.  - The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller, Calvin Thomas

• The people lived in darkness and vassalage. They were lost in the grossness of beef and ale. They had no pamphleteering societies to demonstrate that reading and writing are better than-meat and drink; and they were utterly destitute of the blessings of those " schools for "all," the house of correction and the treadmill, wherein the autochthonal justice of an agrestic kakistocracy now castigates the heinous sins which were then committed with impunity, of treading on old footpaths, picking up dead wood, and moving on the face of the earth within the sound of the whirr of a partridge. - The Edinburgh review, Sydney Smith

• They deserve not to have their eyes opened until they find themselves under the harrow for ever; as they assuredly will find themselves, if they do not take warning while there is yet time. If they think the government of the Church too aristocratic, they will find in ten years that they have exchanged it for a kakistocracy. - The Quarterly review, William Gifford, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, John Gibson Lockhart


Sources: Wikipedia, Online Etymology

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