politics
noun
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Playing Politics
Politics is a multifaceted word. It has a set of fairly specific meanings that are descriptive and nonjudgmental (such as “the art or science of government” and "political principles"), but it can and often does carry a negative meaning closely related to these (“political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices”). English is a flexible language, and it is not uncommon for a word to have multiple related meanings that run the connotative gamut from good to bad. Some of these have been around for a surprisingly long time. The negative sense of politics, as seen in the phrase play politics, for example, has been in use since at least 1853, when abolitionist Wendell Phillips declared: “We do not play politics; anti-slavery is no half-jest with us.”
Example Sentences
Daniel Strauss, The New Republic, 8 Sep. 2022 Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan faces being barred from electoral politics, after judges ordered Thursday that he be put on trial for contempt of court. Saeed Shah, WSJ, 8 Sep. 2022 Attorneys conduct business, juggling office politics with legal tomfoolery. Darren Franich, EW.com, 8 Sep. 2022 The febrile politics of Brexit have raised the prospect — albeit, still remote — of the latter two also breaking away. Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 8 Sep. 2022 But those considerations are entangled with politics, too. Vivian Wang, BostonGlobe.com, 7 Sep. 2022 Among other things, the conflation of Christianity and Republican politics fostered by political elites and powerfully felt at the grassroots level is encouraging absolutism on the right. Jonathan Stevenson, The New York Review of Books, 7 Sep. 2022 But the bill itself points to the extraordinary politics of COVID that gave rise to the legislation. Nanette Asimov, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 Sep. 2022 If De Erdely’s personal politics might be called radical — or at least liberal, especially in the context of the city’s thumping conservatism during the Red Scare era — his art was not. Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 6 Sep. 2022 See More Word History
Middle English Polletiques, Polytykys, as title of Aristotle's Politics, from politik "of spiritual or secular governance, political" + -iques, -ykys -ics, after Middle French politiques, polliticques and Medieval Latin polītica, after Greek tà politiká "public matters, civic affairs," from neuter plural of politikós "of citizens, civic, of a state, political, public" — more at politic
circa 1529, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Phrases Containing politics
Kids Definition
politics
noun plural