Share This Spectacular Vernacular
People world-wide can embrace this word—kakistocracy is a government by the worst people. I’ll let you insert your own joke here.
The second half of the word, -ocracy, is the most recognizable segment and means “rule or government by.” It derives from the Greek -kratia (power, might, or rule).
It’s the first half of the word that is more fun and we’ve visited it before with agathokakological, meaning “something that is both good and bad.” The Greek kakós means “bad” and gives us the Greek kakistos when means “very bad or worst.”
Remembering that one is easy because it traces back even before the Greeks to kakka or kaka, which means “defecate” in many languages.
So when we say a government is a kakistocracy, we mean it’s really, really kaka.
Isn’t language fun?