Democracy, or ‘government by the populace at large’ comes from the Greek demokratia, made up of demos meaning ‘people’ and kratia meaning ‘rule’. Kratia is a derivative of the Greek kratos, meaning ‘power or authority.’ This word has contributed to many terms relating to types of government. The original meaning of the Greek demos was ‘district or land’ but it came to refer to the people living in such a district, especially the ordinary people as a social class participating in the government. The related noun ‘democrat’ was coined in French at the time of the French Revolution.

The ancient Greek society was democratic to the extent that even ostracism or social boycott of a person had to be decided by vote. If it was proposed with an eye to the public welfare that a particular individual should be sent into exile for some time, a democratic vote or ostrakizein was taken on the matter. Each voter inscribed the vote on a piece of broken pottery and the pieces were later counted. If enough votes were cast against the person, this meant ostracism for 10 years.

The fragment of pottery used for voting was the ostrakon, a term that is related to the Greek osteon, meaning ‘bone’ — a prefix that has given English the prefix used by orthopaedics, ‘oesto-’. The whole idea of the power of selection was so strong that it lives on in other words like election that comes from the Latin eligere, which means ‘to pick’.

The voting slip or document was the bullet in 17th-century England: ‘Elected by the great Master and his Knights, who gave their voices by bullets,’ wrote George Sandys in Travels (1615). This bullet came from the Italian bulletta that meant ‘document or voting slip’. This bulletta is the root of the French bulletin that gave English the word bulletin as in news bulletin.

Demagogue or leader of the people represents the Greek demagogos — made up of demos or common people and agogos or leader. In ancient Athens, demagogos was the unpopular set of dictatorial people who unofficially controlled the government.