Word of the Week: hegemony (huh-GEM-muh-nee)
Leadership or dominance of one nation or social group over another. The government portrayed itself as a bulwark against the return of Tutsi hegemony.
Another word that is often mispronounced—something that is dominant in a certain sphere is hegemonic, a verb meaning to subject a people, nation, or process to a dominate power is to heGEMonize, and to make any group of things similar is to homogenize them. The latter two words are quite similar, but hegemonize is generally used for making a group, state, company, or culture dominant, not just nations or people groups. Merriam-Webster’s published examples for hegemony show that the related idea is used for governments, cultural influence, markets, and even the U.S. dollar’s dominance. Use homogenize if you want to refer to the concept of making other things more uniform. Remember the Greek prefix homos means same.
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