Antedating of "Autocrat"

[Fred Shapiro]

autocrat (OED 1803)

1797 Mercier, Louis Sbastien. Astras return; or, the halcyon days of
France in the year 2440: a dream. Translated from the French, by Harriot
Augusta Freeman. 295 (Eighteenth Century Collections Online)  The
constitution is not military, and the sovereign no longer styles himself
Autocrat, and the whole world is too much enlightened to admit of that
odious formality.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
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