boss-shipn.
/ˈbɒsʃɪp/ Originally U.S.
The rule or position of a boss or bosses, esp. in politics.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > rule or government > politics > party politics > [noun] > party machine > types of control of
caucusing1788
wire-pulling1835
wire-working1835
bossism1881
boss-ship1882
bossdom1888
caciquism1903
stratarchy1950
1882 Nation 2 Nov. 371/3 To enable Mahone to build up a new..boss-ship in Virginia.
1889 ‘M. Twain’ Connecticut Yankee xiii. 160 The thing that would have best suited..my nature would have been to resign the Boss-ship and get up an insurrection.
1894 Voice (N.Y.) 6 Sept. It was thought to be an auspicious time to shake off the ‘bossship’ exercised by Mr. Platt for many years.
1904 N.Y. Evening Post 16 Dec. 6 [To] make the time ripe for a party to revolt against a hideous boss-ship.
1928 D. H. Lawrence Lady Chatterley's Lover xiii. 217 ‘But who is boss of the show?’ she asked. ‘The men who own and run the industries.’.. ‘They don't take their boss-ship seriously enough,’ she said.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1933; most recently modified version published online March 2021).
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n.1882