| Noun | 1. | democracy - the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives |
| 2. | democracy - a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them Synonyms: republic, commonwealth | |
| 3. | democracy - the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group Synonyms: majority rule |
DEMOCRACY, government. That form of government in which the sovereign power is exercised by the people in a body, as was the practice in some of the states of Ancient Greece; the term representative democracy has been given to a republican government like that of the United States.
absolute monarchy, aristocracy, autarchy, autocracy, autonomy, coalition government, collective farm, collectivism, collectivity, collegiality, colonialism, common ownership, commonwealth, communal effort, communion, communism, community, constitutional government, constitutional monarchy, cooperation, cooperative society, dictatorship, dominion rule, duarchy, duumvirate, dyarchy, federal government, federation, feudal system, garrison state, gerontocracy, heteronomy, hierarchy, hierocracy, home rule, kibbutz, kolkhoz, limited monarchy, martial law, meritocracy, militarism, military government, mob rule, mobocracy, monarchy, neocolonialism, ochlocracy, oligarchy, pantisocracy, patriarchate, patriarchy, police state, profit sharing, public ownership, pure democracy, regency, representative democracy, representative government, republic, self-determination, self-government, sharecropping, social democracy, socialism, state ownership, stratocracy, technocracy, thearchy, theocracy, totalitarian government, totalitarian regime, town meeting, triarchy, triumvirate, tyranny, welfare state