Junta

Word of the Day for Thursday, June 01, 2006

junta HUN-tuh, JUHN-tuh, noun:

1. A governmental council or committee, especially one that rules after a revolution.

2. A closely knit group united for a common purpose and usually meeting secretly; also called a junto.

His greatest fear, said Wole Soyinka, the Nigerian Nobel laureate and ardent foe of military rule, is that with the death of one tyrant, the world will not press for the entire junta to step aside.
— “Nobel Winner Calls for Nigerian Ruler to Release Political Prisoners”, New York Times, June 12, 1998

The Greek junta that seized power during 1967 mobilized the courts against its foes.
— Charles S. Maier, Dissolution

Two days after the coup, the junta announced that General Videla had been designated President of the Nation.
— Marguerite Feitlowitz, A Lexicon of Terror

Still, the resemblance to political revolution is, in important ways, only metaphorical. Computer nerds aside, there is no junta driving this process of change.
— Andrew L. Shapiro, The Control Revolution

Junta comes from the Spanish word for “joined” (hence, a group of persons joined for a common purpose), from Latin junctus, past participle of jungere, “to join.”