Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - democracy

 noun  (plural -cies)  Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek demokratia, from demos + -kratia -cracy  Date: 1576  1.  a. government by the people; especially rule of the majority  b. a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections  2. a political unit that has a democratic government  3. capitalized the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy — C. M. Roberts  4. the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority  5. the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges