Thesaurus results for STRONGMEN

strongmen

noun

plural of strongman

as in dictators

a person who uses power or authority in a cruel, unjust, or harmful way a Latin-American strongman who basically treated his nation's coffers as his personal bank account

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of strongmen In the vacuum left by absent landlords and ineffective courts, communities turned instead to local strongmen—enforcers who offered protection for a price. —

Encyclopedia Britannica, 13 May 2026 Just beyond the respectable edges of Paris, among the soothsayers and strongmen, works Suzanne (Anaïs Demoustier). —

Ben Croll, IndieWire, 12 May 2026 Min Aung Hlaing’s ascent to the presidency follows a tradition of military strongmen installing themselves as the nation’s top leader and seeking to legitimize their rule through unfair elections. —

ABC News, 10 Apr. 2026 The father and son strongmen have frequently paired up to train together and have been spotted rehearsing the elegant poses that made Schwarzenegger a star. —

Emily St. Martin, Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 2026 America does not belong to strongmen, greedy billionaires, or those who rule through fear. —

Marina Johnson, Louisville Courier Journal, 28 Mar. 2026 With such a destructive geopolitical conflict driven by several strongmen leaders, the industry was always going to feel the ramifications. —

Max Goldbart, Deadline, 6 Mar. 2026 Nor do strongmen have a pristine record as economic stewards. —

Alaa Shahine Salha, semafor.com, 16 Feb. 2026 The trouble, to paraphrase Adam Phillips, is that strongmen tend to bring out the strongman in us all. —

Emily Chamlee-Wright, Washington Post, 6 Feb. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for strongmen

Noun

The opportunity to interview these people would never have been turned down by other organizations, but there was also a sense that these dictators and terrorists and authoritarians were realizing that CNN were giving them this unfiltered platform to speak to the American people.

— Dana Taylor, USA Today, 13 May 2026
Even under military threat, many dictators and authoritarian leaders — Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Bashar al-Assad in Syria and earlier this year, Maduro in Venezuela — have chosen resistance until the last minute.

— Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald, 23 Apr. 2026