δεσπότης Ancient Greek · revision 2222

Its basic meaning is the master of a household, especially as owner of slaves: Plato says that slaves and masters can never be friends, and Aristotle makes master and slave the first parts of the household.^(LSJ 1940)^(DGE) It was also used of the gods, often in prayers, and of the Persian king, whom his subjects addressed as “master”, in Aeschylus, Herodotus and Xenophon.^(CGL 2021)^(LSJ 1940) Since Greeks did not address their own rulers so, the word could mean an absolute ruler, a despot, in Herodotus, Thucydides and Plato.^(LSJ 1940)^(CGL 2021) Herodotus has the Spartans' law as their only master.^(DGE) Later it was used of the Roman emperors.^(LSJ 1940)

In Byzantium it became a title of the emperor, then of princes and of the rulers of the despotates, such as the despot of the Morea or of Arta; it was also used for Christ and, from the medieval period, for a bishop.^(Kriaras)^(Πάπυρος) In Modern Greek [[m|el|δεσπότης|tr=despótis]] is the everyday word for a bishop and an epithet of Christ, and, as a learned word, the ruler of a despotate or an absolute ruler.^(Triantafyllidis 1998) English ''despot'' came from it through Medieval Latin ''despota'' in the 16th century, at first for Byzantine and Ottoman-era Christian rulers.^(Etymonline)