Examples of “oligarchy” in a Sentence

noun A system of government in which power rests with a small group of people, typically the wealthy, rather than with the population as a whole.

• Critics argue the country has drifted from democracy into oligarchy.
• Aristotle treated oligarchy as the corrupted form of aristocracy.

noun The small group that holds such power, or a state ruled by one.

• A narrow oligarchy of families controlled the city for two centuries.
• Sparta and Venice were both oligarchies.