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"International opinion has for too long been stuck in a conceptual opacity about bad governments, oppressive regimes both numerous and corrupt, which it has been unable to clearly distinguish: are they dictatorships, despotisms, tyrannies, totalitarianisms, autocracies, etc.? This embarrassment is prejudicial above all to the right of resistance (a modern version of ancient tyrannicide), because before activating it, one must specify against which oppressive regime one has the right and the duty to apply it. Terms such as "despotism" and "tyranny" which proved efficacious for clarifying political debate until the beginning of the nineteenth century, have been eliminated from the vocabulary of political science in our days because of a confusion that has muddled their meaning. This vocabulary has thus become impoverished to the advantage of terms like "autocracy," or yet others, especially "dictatorship," equally vague and imprecise. This paper proposes two things: firstly, it demonstrates that we have forgotten to make a distinction between these two "conceptual terms" which was clear in the past; secondly, it attempts to understand at which moment in history the confusion occurred and why. As for their restoration into contemporary political vocabulary, that is not the question. This work would simply like to encourage people to reflect on the political terminology inherited from tradition and on the correct use of concepts and of their definitions, in order to reintegrate political vocabulary and render it more useful in decrypting contemporary reality, which often remains complex and even undecipherable. Following the most reliable sources, one can thus formulate the distinction between two terms or concepts: despotism is a form of government that, while effectively authoritarian and arbitrary, remains legitimate, in other words legal in certain countries and historical situations; while tyranny, in addition to constituting an arbitrary and authoritarian government, is in every case (country and historical situation) both illegitimate and illegal, for it is exercised not only without or against the consent of citizens, but in contempt of fundamental human rights. "