OLIGARCHY in a Sentence

Learn OLIGARCHY from example sentences, some of them are from classic books. These examples are selected from a corpus with 300,000 sentences, including classic works and current mainstream media. Some sentences also link to their contexts.

For OLIGARCHY, below is one of 5 sentences:
One small clique ran the student council: what had been intended as a democratic governing body had turned into an oligarchy.

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 Meanings and Examples of OLIGARCHY
Definition Example Sentence Classic Sentence
oligarchy
 n.  government by a few persons, especially by a small faction of persons or families
Classic Sentence:
1  It'd had more generations in which to form an oligarchy of respectability.
Main Street By Sinclair Lewis
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XIII
2  The city, which was owned by an oligarchy of business men, being nominally ruled by the people, a huge army of graft was necessary for the purpose of effecting the transfer of power.
The Jungle By Upton Sinclair
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 25
3  The Spartans held Athens and Thebes, establishing there an oligarchy, nevertheless they lost them.
The Prince By Niccolo Machiavelli
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER V — CONCERNING THE WAY TO GOVERN CITIES OR PRINCI...
4  It is well understood here, that by the words Venice, England, we designate not the peoples, but social structures; the oligarchies superposed on nations, and not the nations themselves.
Les Misérables 4 By Victor Hugo
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 1: CHAPTER IV—CRACKS BENEATH THE FOUNDATION
Example Sentence:
1  One small clique ran the student council: what had been intended as a democratic governing body had turned into an oligarchy.