1812 Columbian Centinel 23 May 2/3 The sensibility of the good people of Massachusetts is..awakened to this ‘Gerrymander’.

1812 Massachusetts Spy 4 Nov. Gerrymander Senate.

1812 Boston Gaz. 23 Nov. Some returns from democratic towns are not made conformable to the Gerrymander law of last February.

1813 Massachusetts Spy 12 May An official statement of the returns of voters for senators give[s] twenty nine friends of peace, and eleven gerrymanders.

1868 Nat. Encycl. I. 619 Gerrymander, a method of arranging election districts so that the political party making the arrangement will be enabled to elect a greater number of representatives than they could on a fair system, and more than they should have in proportion to their numerical strength.

1881 H. C. Lodge in J. Winsor Mem. Hist. Boston III. 212 In 1812, while [Elbridge] Gerry was governor[of Massachusetts], the Democratic Legislature, in order to secure an increased representation of their party in the State Senate, districted the State in such a way that the shapes of the towns, forming such a district in Essex[County], brought out a territory of singular outline. This was indicated on a map which Russell, the editor of the Centinel, hung in his office. Stuart, the painter, observing it, added a head, wings, and claws, and exclaimed, ‘That will do for a salamander!’ ‘Gerrymander!’ said Russell, and the word became a proverb.

1884 Times (Weekly ed.) 17 Oct. 17/2 The Ohio Democrats had made a partisan gerrymander of certain districts in order to retain power.

1891 G. W. Curtis in Harper's Weekly 28 Mar. (Funk) Mr. M^cKinley..was defeated only by a gerrymander.

1812 Salem Gaz. 22 Dec. 2/4 So much..for War and Gerrymandering.

1812 N.Y. Post 28 Dec. 3/1 They attempted also to Gerrymander the State for the choice of Representatives to Congress.

1813 Boston Gaz. 8 Apr. When a man has been swindled out of his rights by a villain, he says he has been Gerrymandered.

1859 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2) Introd. 24.

1862 T. Winthrop Edwin Brothertoft (1876) ii. ii. 111 A great scope of fertile plain, gerrymandered into farms.

1884 Times (Weekly ed.) 17 Oct. 4/1 A question how the constituencies can be gerrymandered.

1887 Smyth in Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc. XVIII. 123 Gerrymandering dialect phenomena cannot but hurt a domain of philology that is sadly in lack of material with which to operate.

1890 Spectator 20 Sept. 367/2 They either had been ‘gerrymandered’ or thought they had been ‘gerrymandered’ out of their fair share of representative power.

1893 Times 26 Apr. 9/3 Mr. C—— described Mr. B—— as a political puritan who had grossly gerrymandered the Lancashire bench [of magistrates].

1884 Q. Rev. Oct. 577 It would enable ministers to appeal to a gerrymandered constituency.

1884 Pall Mall Gaz. 18 July We do not think the astutest gerrymanderer could turn the scale.

1813 Massachusetts Spy 2 June The manner in which they have obtained this majority is by a species of gerrymandering.

1848 J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms Gerrymandering.

1872 N.Y. Sunday Merc. 31 Mar. (Farmer) The Legislature of Ohio intends to prove itself a veritable master in the Gerrymandering business.

1883 Q. Rev. Jan. 271 In 1832..some very remarkable feats of ‘jerrymandering’ were performed by the Whig Party.

1893 Times 27 Apr. 8/1 He [Mr. Trevelyan] was admirably equipped for passing a gerrymandering Bill of this sort.