Definition of "totalitarian" []

• Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed: "A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomous institutions in its drive to seize the human soul” ( Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.) (adjective)
• A practitioner or supporter of such a government. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As a sometime teacher of political science and international law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely."
• "As a sometime teacher of law, I do not use the term totalitarian loosely."
• "The word "totalitarian," on the other hand, describes a kind of finished system, one operating according to fixed rules."