Etymology: < -ocracy (in aristocracy n., democracy n., etc.); compare -o- connective, -cracy comb. form.Virtually all loanwords and formations in -cracy comb. form occur with the connecting vowel -o- connective, originally reflecting the stem vowel of the initial element. Formations made in English on Greek first elements but not of actual Greek origin, e.g. monocracy n., merocracy n. appear during the 17th cent. angelocracy n. may be one of these, or it may be an early example of a formation with an English first element and -ocracy , unambiguous examples of which begin to appear in the 18th cent., e.g. mobocracy n., Robinocracy n. The borrowing from French of bureaucracy n. (formed with -cracy comb. form, but having the same pronunciation as words in -ocracy ) in the early 19th cent. is followed, particularly in the fourth and fifth decades of the century, by a plethora of English-based compounds employed to designate in mockery or ridicule any dominant, superior, or aspiring class, e.g. cottonocracy n., foolocracy n., landocracy n., millocracy n., moneyocracy n., rotocracy n., shopocracy n., squirocracy n., etc. Such formations appear to a lesser degree later in the century, e.g. beerocracy n., clubocracy n. The element has continued to be productive in the 20th cent., notably in technocracy n. and meritocracy n.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2004; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
comb. form