Definition of "tyrannize"
tyrannize
verb
third-person singular simple present tyrannizes, present participle tyrannizing, simple past and past participle tyrannized
(transitive) To oppress (someone).
Quotations
I spent the first 18 years of my life tyrannized by a red-hot hair-pressing comb. Well, maybe tyrannized is an exaggeration. But covering your ears while hot grease sizzles nearby is not a young girl's idea of a fun time.
2001, Breena Clarke, “Roots of Success” (review of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker by A’Lelia Bundles), Chicago Tribune, 18 February, 2001
(intransitive) To rule as a tyrant.
Quotations
Ah, Rome! Well, well; I made thee miserableWhat time I threw the people’s suffragesOn him that thus doth tyrannize o’er me.
c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act IV, scene iii]
[…] lest som should perswade ye, Lords and Commons, that these arguments of lerned mens discouragement at this your order, are meer flourishes, and not reall, I could recount what I have seen and heard in other Countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes […]
1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], page 24
Parental affection, indeed, in many minds, is but a pretext to tyrannize where it can be done with impunity, for only good and wise men are content with the respect that will bear discussion.
1791 (date written), Mary Wollstonecraft, chapter 10, in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: […] Peter Edes for Thomas and Andrews, […], published 1792