Meaning
Excessively harsh - said of laws, rules, penalties, and budget cuts that punish out of all proportion. The word keeps a small compliment in its harshness: whatever is draconian is at least written down. Standard in political and legal journalism; the capital letter belongs to the lawgiver, and the harshness was, on the surviving evidence, partly Solon's later propaganda. Regional use: General English; Athenian origin.
Origin
Draco was, by Athenian tradition, the city's first lawgiver, publishing his code in 621-620 BC on rotating wooden tablets - the first written laws of Athens, replacing blood feud with court, and distinguishing murder from accidental killing. Tradition added the excess: death even for stealing a cabbage, and his own defence that he had no greater punishment for greater crimes. Plutarch's verdict fixed the code in memory - written not in ink but in blood - though the surviving homicide inscription shows exile for unintentional killing, and Solon repealed everything but that law in the early sixth century, Athens republishing it on stone in 409-8 BC. The English adjective, from Latin Draco, has been applied to harsh legislation since 1777, and the modern record runs from colonial punishments to austerity: a far more draconian punishment in a 2009 Australian history, and Thailand's draconian lese-majeste law in a 2023 BBC report. Separately, and by the dragon word rather than the lawgiver, fantasy fiction keeps a race of draconians.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- draconian cuts
- draconian laws
- draconian measures
Usage Examples
- The new absence policy was called draconian for sacking anyone late twice, and it was.
- Fining cyclists a week's wages struck the bench as draconian, reduced to a stern letter.
- Historians debate whether the code was draconian or merely the first anyone could read.