means A system of government in which the state seeks total control over every aspect of public and private life, allowing no opposition and demanding not just compliance but belief.

from From Italian totalitario, a word that came into use under Mussolini's regime to describe a 'total' state — lo stato totalitario — built on the Latin totus, 'whole, entire.' Strikingly, the term was first embraced by its own architects as a badge of pride before critics turned it into an accusation. It spread into English in the 1920s and '30s as the world watched whole societies swallowed whole.