I know bloody well what the original meaning of "terror" was (you translate lots of sentences about terror and tyrants when you start studying Latin). The shift in meaning in English from the Latin meaning to the current meaning happened a long time ago.
I can also inform you that I just tried googling "tromokratia" (which google and/or chromium helpfully offered to transliterate into proper Greek). I got all the expected hits for the current English/German/etc meaning. The Wikipedia page lists all the usual greatest hits: Lockerbie, Timothy McVeigh, 9/11, London, Madrid. There is no hint what so ever that the usual or even just non-obscure meaning would be "fear-monger", as MaysonL suggested.
I think Varoufakis /meant/ terrorism and some people are backpedaling for him...
The word "terrorism" in its more original form is ruling by fear and it can mean many things, such as being given power because the population is afraid of what you might do if you don't get what you want. "Terorrism", by contrast, is a massively politically loaded word for a completely black & white "good vs evil" world.