democracy

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
• noun A political or social unit that has such a government.
• noun The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
• noun Majority rule.
• noun The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun Government by the people; a system of government in which the sovereign power of the state is vested in the people as a whole, and is exercised directly by them or their elected agents.
• noun A state or civil body in which the people themselves exercise all legislative authority, and confer all executive and judicial powers, either by direct collective action or through elected representatives.
• noun Political and social equality in general; a state of society in which no hereditary differences of rank or privilege are recognized: opposed to aristocracy.
• noun [capitalized] In United States political history:
• noun The system of principles held by the Democratic party. See democratic.
• noun The members of the Democratic party collectively.
• noun In a collective sense, the people; especially, the people regarded as exercising political powers.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and directly exercised by the people.
• noun Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.
• noun Collectively, the people, regarded as the source of government.
• noun U.S. The principles and policy of the Democratic party, so called.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun uncountable Rule by the people, especially as a form of government; either directly or through elected representatives (representative democracy).
• noun countable, government A government under the direct or representative rule of the people of its jurisdiction.
• noun uncountable Belief in political freedom and equality; the "spirit of democracy".

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group
• noun the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives
• noun a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them