[f. SULTAN sb. + -ISM.] Rule like that of a sultan; absolute government; despotism, tyranny.
1821. New Monthly Mag., II. 354. Our admiration of chivalry and sultanism.
1851. H. Melville, Whale, xxxiii. 161. That certain sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested.
1869. Seeley, Ess. & Lect. (1870), 88. Asiatic sultanism was set up, and all public functions fell into the hands of military officials. Ibid. (1884), Short Hist. Nap. I. (1886), iii. § 4. 113. The rising sultanism [of Napoleon in 1804].
