(1) Noisy shouting; loud, continuous noise. (2) Strong and active protest or demand.

The clamor on Broadway at midday can be astonishing to a tourist from a midwestern town; if they happen to be digging up the street with jackhammers, the clamor can be even worse. The clamor on the floor of a stock exchange goes on without stopping for seven hours every day. A clamor of protest may sometimes be quieter, but is often just as hard to ignore. A politican who receives a thousand e-mails a day *clamoring* for his resignation might as well be listening to an angry crowd.

(1) A loud, eager indication of approval, praise, or agreement. (2) An overwhelming yes vote by cheers, shouts, or applause. Approval can come from a single person, but acclamation requires a larger audience. An *acclaimed* movie is widely praised, and critical *acclaim* can lead to box-office success. When a popular proposal comes up in a legislature, the speaker may ask that it be passed “by acclamation,” which means that everyone just gets to yell and cheer in approval and no one bothers counting the votes at all.

idi.'kaml

To speak in the formal manner of someone delivering a speech. Declaiming suggests an unnatural style of speech best suited to a stage or podium. Listening to an actor declaim a passage in a Shakespeare play can be enjoyable. Listening to Aunt Ida at Sunday dinner declaiming on the virtues of roughage might not be. Most people don't appreciate being treated as an audience, and good advice is usually more welcome when it's not given in a *declamatory* style.

ppr-kaml

To declare or announce publicly, officially, or definitely. The *pro-* in *proclaim* means “forward, out,” so a *proclamation* is an “outward” statement intended for the public. We often think of proclamations as something issued by monarchs or dictators, but Lincoln was able to issue his Emancipation Proclamation because as president he had the power to free the slaves in certain areas. At a slightly lower level, a governor may proclaim a day in honor of the state's firemen, a movie critic may proclaim a director to be the best of all, or you may proclaim your New Year's resolutions to a crowd of friends.

la.ris.tto.kkratt

The highest social class in a country, usually because of birth and wealth. Since *aristos* means “best” in Greek, ancient Greeks such as Plato and Aristotle used the word *aristocracy* to mean a system of rule by the best people—that is, those who deserved to rule because of their intelligence and moral excellence. But this kind of “best” soon became something you could inherit from your parents. The United States has no formal aristocracy—no noble titles such as *baron* or *marquis* that stay in the family—but certain American families have achieved an almost *aristocratic* status because of the wealth they've held onto for generations.

(1) Having to do with a form of government in which one person rules. (2) Resembling the ruler of such a government. *Autos* in Greek means “same” or “self,” so in an autocratic government all the power is held by the leader him- or herself. Autocratic governments are often called dictatorships, or sometimes *autocracies.* In everyday life, a teacher, a parent, or a football coach can all behave like autocrats as well.

(1) An appointed government official. (2) An official of a government or system that is marked by fixed and complex rules that often result in long delays. In French, a *bureau* is a desk, so *bureaucracy* means basically “government by people at desks.” Despite the bad-mouthing they often get, partly because they usually have to stick so close to the rules, bureaucrats do almost all the day-to-day work that keeps a government running. The idea of a bureaucracy is to split up the complicated task of governing a large country into smaller jobs that can be handled by specialists. *Bureaucratic* government is nothing new; the Roman empire had an enormous and complex bureaucracy, with the bureaucrats at lower levels reporting to bureaucrats above them, and so on up to the emperor himself.

ipli.tt-kra-si

(1) Government by the wealthy. (2) A controlling class of wealthy people. *Ploutos* was Greek for “wealth,” and Plouton, or Pluto, was one of the names used for the Greek god of the underworld, where all the earth's mineral wealth was stored. So a plutocracy governs or wields power through its money. The economic growth in the U.S. in the late 19th century produced a group of enormously wealthy *plutocrats.* Huge companies like John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil gained serious political power, and Rockefeller was able to influence lawmakers in states where his businesses operated. For this reason, it was said in 1905 that Ohio and New Jersey were plutocracies, not democracies.