Borrowed from German Hitler; see German Etymology for further details.
Meanings
(derogatory, offensive) A dictatorial person; someone who loves to exert their power and influence over others. (often used as a term of abuse)
“He was called a ‘little Hitler’ yesterday,” Stevens said. “A guy pointed at him in his car and then he said that we didn’t like brown people. I don’t understand that at all.” 2019 February 18, Tulsi Kamath, “Boy, 7, called ‘little Hitler’ for raising money for Wall, mom says”, in KXAN, archived from the original on 21 Jun 2020:
How does he support his position against the prima facie case in favor of the strongly counterintuitive claim that non-violence would necessarily defeat a Hitler? 1986, William Borman, Gandhi and Non-Violence:
A: Don't you think you could try sorting your rubbish instead of tossing everything out together? B: Ok, Hitler.
tfw you could be starving and wanting to feed your family, but gender Hitler says no males for this job because a vagina makes you 'special' 2017 April 13, @DatingSims, Twitter (post):
Borrowed from German Hitler; see German Etymology for further details.
Meanings
A surname from Austrian German.
It was reminiscent of the rallies held by Adolph Hitler during the 1930s-1940s before adoring crowds in Nazi Germany. At many of these Nazi rallies, the German participants swore personal allegiance to their nation’s leader-Adolph Hitler over and above their own Nation-Germany. 2020 November 19, Richard Weintraub, “Trump's use of 'Newspeak' to explain away virus puts Americans at risk | For What It's Worth”, in Pocono Record:
(abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsis) A surname from Austrian German. ▸ Ellipsis of Adolf Hitler; Führer of the Nazi Party and chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945; particularly as the embodiment of Nazism.
Clearly, Hitler saw his historical function as a Wagnerian grand opera. Vast cosmic changes required an accompaniment of slaughter on a colossal scale. 1949 September 4, H. R. Trevor-Roper, “Hitler Reappraised, Ten Years After”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2025:
Mueller is even less convincing in his suggestion that World War II might never have happened if Hitler had never been born. 1994, Karen A. Rasler, William R. Thompson, The great powers and global struggle, 1490-1990:
People do evil things (Hitler, Stalin, Saddam Hussein). 2007, Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion:
[…]the description we give of God’s knowledge concerning Hitler has to be different after Hitler’s death; it is manifest that there has been a change on Hitler’s side, and that this, in view of the logic of omniscience, makes a difference to what we can truly say about God’s knowledge; it is not manifest that there must have been a real change of mind on God's side. And Aquinas can say this[…] 1977, Peter Thomas Geach, Providence and Evil, page 41:
Karma police, arrest this girl / Her Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill 1997, “Karma Police”, in OK Computer, performed by Radiohead:
What is one curious about when he asks, What is evil? The question makes no sense, unless the questioner is satisfied with such answers as: Death is evil, pain is evil, Hitler is evil. 1964, David Hugh Freeman, A Philosophical Study of Religion, page 241:
The British ruling class are fighting against Hitler, whom they have always regarded and whom some of them still regard as their protector against Bolshevism. That does not mean that they will deliberately sell out; but it does mean that at every decisive moment they are likely to falter, pull their punches, do the wrong thing. Until the Churchill Government called some sort of halt to the process, they have done the wrong thing with an unerring instinct ever since 1931. 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II: