Definition of "despot"

despot

/ˈdɛs.pɒt/

noun
plural despots
1. A ruler with absolute power; a tyrant.
  Quotations
  The Red Holocaust is best interpreted in this light as the bitter fruit of an utopian gambit that was socially misengineered into a dystopic nightmare by despots in humanitarian disguise.
  2009, Steven Rosefielde, Red Holocaust, page 240
2. (historical) A title awarded to senior members of the imperial family in the late Byzantine Empire, and claimed by various independent or semi-autonomous rulers in the Balkans (12th to 15th centuries)