politiciann.adj.
/ˌpɒlᵻˈtɪʃn/, U.S. /ˌpɑləˈtɪʃ(ə)n/ A. n.† 3. = politic n. 2a. Obsolete.
1.
a. A schemer or plotter; a shrewd, sagacious, or crafty person. In later use also (esp. U.S. derogatory, influenced by sense A. 2b): a self-interested manipulator, whose behaviour is likened to that of a professional politician.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > will > intention > planning > plotting > [noun] > plotter
compassera1513
engineer?a1513
hafter1519
contrivera1522
deviser1523
intrycarc1540
practiser1545
practisant1550
practitioner1560
brewer1563
platformer1572
hatcher1578
politician1586
plotter1594
tamperer1599
plotcaster1602
machinator1611
plot-maker1641
trinketer1651
intriguer1667
plot-monger1683
schemist1724
under-plotter1728
intriguant1781
policizer1809
intriguist1830
schemer1846
planster1945
wheeler-dealer1960
1586 G. Whetstone Eng. Myrror xiii. 172 These notable polititians [sc. traitors], or more properly Atheists, if they were simply to deale with men, they might many times happily see the wished effects of their deuises: but they striue against God that striue against their soueraigne Princes.
1592 T. Nashe Pierce Penilesse (Brit. Libr. copy) sig. B3 Hee [sc. the Diuel] was..so famous a Politician in purchasing, that Hel, which at the beginning was but an obscure Village, is now become a huge Citie.
1613 G. Chapman Reuenge Bussy D'Ambois i. sig. C4v This was a sleight well maskt. O what is man, Vnlesse he be a Politician!
1685 R. Codrington Proverbs 110 Honest men marry soon, many Politicians not at all.
1749 H. Fielding Tom Jones II. vi. ii. 238 The Squire..was, however, in many Points, a perfect Politician . View more context for this quotation
1764 S. Foote Patron iii. 59 Ah, Bever, Bever! you are a miserable politician: Do you know now that this is the luckiest incident that ever occurr'd?
a1855 C. Brontë Professor (1988) xi I had indeed a very long talk with the crafty little politician [sc. Mlle. Reuter] and on regaining my quarters I found that dinner was half over.
1876 H. James Crawford's Consistency in Scribner's Monthly Aug. 572 She appeared to have no more intelligence than a snowy-fleeced lamb, but I fancied she was, by instinct, a shrewd little politician.
1879 G. Campbell White & Black in U.S. 68 The word ‘politician’ is used in a bad sense in America, as applied to people who make politics a profession, and are skilled in the art of ‘wire pulling’ and such practices.
1887 Chicago Advance 17 Feb. 107 [The California Chinese Mission] raised the last year in California $3,756, hoodlums, sandlotters and politicians to the contrary notwithstanding.
1996 J. V. Jones Man Betrayed 220 Quite a politician, aren't you Baralis? But here in Bren we value strength, not smoothness of tongue.
2002 H. Igboanusi Dict. Nigerian Eng. Usage 225 Politician, anyone who can argue convincingly and persuasively... ‘That man is a politician. He can present lies to appear as truth.’
b. U.S. Prison slang and Navy slang. A person who obtains preferential treatment, esp. an easy or desirable job, through manipulation.
ΚΠ
1911 Fleet Rev. Mar. 44 After his watch is over and he is on deck for a breathing spell..don't think, shipmates of the dynamo room, that he is a ‘politician’ or a shirk.
1912 A. Berkman Prison Mem. Anarchist xxvi. 312 I improve the opportunity to talk to the solitaries. Jasper ‘Southside’ and Bob Runyon, the ‘politicians’, also converse at the doors.
1944 P. Kendall Dict. Service Slang (Navy Slang) A politician, avoids work by social manipulations.
1987 J. J. Dilulio Governing Prisons (1990) iii. 160 Inmate leaders and ‘politicians’—inmates who..can garner special privileges for themselves and their friends—were demoted in status or transferred out if they became disobedient or cocky.
2.
a. An expert in the theory of politics, or in the governance and business of a State or polity; a person appointed to or inheriting a position in government, a statesman. Now chiefly historical or as merged in A. 2b.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > politician > [noun]
politic1559
politian1584
politician1589
politico1630
politiconea1734
civilist1736
political1833
machine politician1876
pol1907
frock1919
polly1932
1589 G. Puttenham Arte Eng. Poesie i. iii. 5 Poets..were the first lawmakers to the people, and the first polititiens, deuising all expedient meanes for th'establishment of Common wealth.
1592 T. Nashe Pierce Penilesse (Brit. Libr. copy) sig. C3 Some thinke to be counted rare Politicians and Statesmen, by beeing solitarie.
1634 W. Tirwhyt tr. J. L. G. de Balzac Lett. 33 That felicity Politisians search after, as being the end of civil life.
1696 E. Phillips New World of Words (new ed.) Politician, one that under~stands the Art of Governing, or judges of it according to the Parts he has acquired.
1711 Ld. Shaftesbury Characteristicks III. Misc. v. i. 261 Over-refinement of Art and Policy [is]..naturally incident to the experienc'd and thorow politician.
1765 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. I. Introd. 96 Sir Edward Coke, and the politicians of that time, conceived great difficulties in carrying on the projected union.
1792 C. Smith Desmond III. viii. 97 Your uncle Danby, who is the most profound politician that frequents the coffee-houses of this news-demanding and news-affording city.
1886 M. Arnold in Times 22 May 15/6 Lord Salisbury's bad and arbitrary temper (I mean, of course, as a politician,..) is as great a misfortune to the country as Lord Randolph Churchill's intriguing.
1919 Classical Q. 13 36/2 He [sc. Strabo] insists at length upon the importance of geography to rulers, politicians, and soldiers.
1982 R. Sheppard & M. Valpy National Deal vi. 113 Machiavelli's politician is accountable to the entire polis, with its myriad competing value systems.
b. A person who is keenly interested in practical politics, or who engages in party politics or political strife; now spec. one who is professionally involved in politics as the holder of or a candidate for an elected office.In the 17th and 18th centuries, usually with opprobrious overtones.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > politician > [noun] > person interested in politics
civilian1570
politician1629
politic animal1699
political animal1710
politico1893
zoon politikon1895
society > authority > rule or government > politics > party politics > [noun] > engagement in > person engaged in
politician1629
1629 J. Ford Lovers Melancholy iv. 59 So Polititians thriue, That with their crabbed faces, and sly tricks..do wriggle in Their heads first, like a Foxe, to roomes of State.
1632 T. Heywood 2nd Pt. Iron Age sig. C1v I am a pollitician, oathes with me Are but the tooles I worke with, I may breake An oath by my profession.
1646 G. Buck Hist. Life Richard III i. 17 Lewis..was meerly a Politician, and studied only his owne ends.
1709 S. Centlivre Busie Body i. i. 4 We are all thought to be Politicians, or Whigs, or Jacks, or High-Flyers, or Low-Flyers, or Levellers.
a1732 J. Gay Fables (1738) II. ix. 80 Politicians you suggest, Should drive the nail that goes the best.
1776 A. Smith Inq. Wealth of Nations II. iv. ii. 51 That insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.
1796 E. Burke Two Lett. Peace Regicide Directory France ii, in Wks. (1808) VIII. 218 The tribe of vulgar politicians are the lowest of our species.
1828 T. B. Macaulay Hallam's Constit. Hist. in Edinb. Rev. Sept. 157 A politician, where factions run high, is interested not for the whole people, but for his own section of it.
1869 M. H. Smith Sunshine & Shadow in N.Y. 270 Pot-house politicians, who had made the City Hall their headquarters, to the disgust of decent people.
1892 Quiz & Lantern (Adelaide) 29 Apr. 6/2 When a politician visits England he generally has a job on hand.
1920 National Rev. Apr. 142 On the eve of a Presidential Election campaign, when practical politicians have their ears to the ground.
1960 A. Koestler Lotus & Robot i. i. 36 A soft-drink cocktail party in the house of a leading Parsee politician.
1988 Parl. Affairs 41 361 We have government by a conviction politician, less willing than its predecessors to take advice.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > aspects of faith > creed > [noun] > indifference to > person
politic1533
politique1581
adiaphorist1607
politician1643
latitudinarian1662
anythingariana1704
indifferentist1807
1643 F. Cheynell Rise, Growth, & Danger Socinianisme v. 56 This Jesuited Politician you see hath praises to spare for Servetus, one of the most abominable horrible Anabaptists of all others.
1656 M. Casaubon Treat. Enthvsiasme iii. 171 The use of this Theologie, doth most properly belong unto Jesuits,..and Jesuited Politicians, whether they call themselves Lutherans, or Calvinists, or otherwise.
1672 H. Stubbe Rosemary & Bayes 7 The Ecclesiastical Politition writ in England.
1681 R. Baxter Acct. Sherlocke iv. 189 Their minuter differences have made some called Lutherans,..some Independents, and some Politicians or Erastians.
1718 M. Malard French & Protestant Compan. xxv. 129/1 So angry was God against that meeting of Hypocrites and Politicians, who had no Mind to reform the Abuses, nor the Heresies of their Church.
1786 W. McGill Pract. Ess. Death Jesus 111 The mean and truckling weakness of a temporising politician, determined at all events to keep measures with the world.
4. U.S. The white-eyed vireo, Vireo griseus. Now rare.
ΘΚΠ
the world > animals > birds > order Passeriformes (singing) > family Muscicapidae (thrushes, etc.) > [noun] > subfamily Muscicapinae > genus Muscicapa (fly-catcher) > other types of
red-eyed flycatcher1754
politician1810
1810 A. Wilson Amer. Ornithol. II. 166 This bird builds a very neat little nest..of..bits of rotten wood,..pieces of paper, commonly newspapers, an article most always found about its nest, so that some of my friends have given it the name of the Politician.
1868 J. G. Wood Homes without Hands xiii. 247 The White-Eyed Flycatcher (Muscicapa cantrix)..uses so much newspaper in the construction of its home, that it has gone by the name of Politician.
1917 T. G. Pearson Birds Amer. III. 109 White-eyed Vireo... Other names.—White-eyed Greenlet; Politician.
B. adj. (attributive).
Politic; political; of, relating to, or characteristic of politicians.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > [adjective]
politic1427
political1529
state1579
statistial1602
statistical1602
politician1638
coalitional1785
statistic1824
1638 R. Baker tr. J. L. G. de Balzac New Epist. III. 43 This is one of your politician subtleties, to make Angoulesme passe for a Frontier Towne.
1671 J. Milton Samson Agonistes 1195 Your ill-meaning Politician Lords,..Appointed to await me thirty spies. View more context for this quotation
1882 Cent. Mag. Dec. 222 Or why not plunge thy blades about Some maggot politician throng?
1885 A. Forbes Souvenirs of Continents 247 A turbulent..sea of political or rather politician quasi-social life.
1994 P. Baker Blood Posse xv. 169 When I called for us to take the base, I came up against politician talk.
2003 Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News 14 Apr. b1 We don't have..a political agenda or a politician mentality.
Derivatives
poliˈticianess n. a woman who is an expert in politics; a female politician.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > politician > [noun] > female
politicianess1785
1785 A. Adams Let. in Adams Family Corr. (1993) VI. 216 She is also a great politicianess, which consequently pleased Mamma.
1887 Sat. Rev. 11 June 833/1 Mr. Lawson, and the other Radical politicians and politicianesses who went out for to see what was to be seen at Bodyke.
1906 Sat. Rev. 23 June 775 The frantic self-advertisement of these make-believe politicianesses must really be ended.
1966 Times Recorder (Zanesville, Ohio) 14 Dec. 8 d/3 TV producer and politicianess..Medori Tsuji..is marrying international lawyer Peter Lederer this week.
poliˈticianism n. practice characteristic of a politician.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > [noun] > political skill or statecraft > practice characteristic of politician
politicianism1843
1843 R. Paul Let. 15 Aug. in B. Bell Mem. R. Paul (1872) xiii. 168 Lord Aberdeen has got his bill passed... It is a mere piece of politicianism.
1938 Times 20 Jan. 13/6 Some of them were tarred with the brush of ‘politicianism’ as ex-members of democratic parties.
2000 Romanian Business Jrnl. (Nexis) 17 Mar. A recent opinion poll..revealed the decline of the political class and of politicianism in the eyes of the electorate.
poliˈticianize v. (intransitive and transitive) to make political; to involve in party politics.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > party politics > involve in party politics [verb (transitive)]
politicianize1885
1885 Chester (Pa.) Times 23 June 3/1 The polititioners will go to Media on Thursday and politicianize.
1893 Voice (N.Y.) 26 Oct. 2/4 The corrupt ring that has bound this city hand and foot,..politicianizing the public schools and perpetrating bold, gigantic robberies upon the taxpayers.
1919 L. Waldeman Great Collapse 198 Municipalizing the traction systems does not necessarily mean politicianizing them.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2006; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.adj.1586