[f. Gr. κάκιστο-ς worst + -κρατία rule, after aristocracy.] The government of a state by the worst citizens.
1829. T. L. Peacock, Misfort. Elphin, vi. 93. Our agrestic kakistocracy now castigates the heinous sins which were then committed with impunity.
1876. Lowell, Lett., II. vii. 159. Is ours a ‘government of the people by the people for the people,’ or a Kakistocracy rather, for the benefit of knaves at the cost of fools?
1879. Baring-Gould, Germany, II. 286. The modern régime is at once a plutocracy and a kakistocracy.
So † Kakistocratical a.
1641. ‘Smectymnuus,’ Vind. Answ., vi. 82. But when the men in whose hands the government of the Church is, are bad; then it is τῶν κακίστων κράτος, or Kakistocraticall.
