Anarchy

Greek anarkhia — without a ruler. From an- (without) + arkhos (leader, ruler). Used by Greek writers to describe states between kings or moments of civil collapse. Entered English in the 16th century as a term of disorder before being claimed as a political philosophy in the 19th.

Used pejoratively in mainstream political speech to mean chaos and lawlessness. Used affirmatively by anarchist thinkers — Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin — to describe stateless cooperative order. The two uses describe completely different conditions but share the word. Modern 'anarcho-capitalism' and 'anarcho-syndicalism' show how far the philosophical tradition diverged from the popular sense.