1. A cruel and oppressive dictator
   "the propagandistic iconography of a tyrant";
   - autocrat, despot
    
2. Any person who exercises power in a cruel way
   "his father was a tyrant"
    
3. In ancient Greece, a ruler who had seized power without legal right to it
   "Peisistratus became a tyrant of Athens in the 6th century BCE"

Derived forms: tyrants

Type of: actor, dictator, doer, potentate, ruler, worker

Encyclopedia: Tyrant