POLITICIAN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does politician mean? 

• POLITICIAN (noun)
  The noun POLITICIAN has 3 senses:

1. a leader engaged in civil administration

2. a person active in party politics

3. a schemer who tries to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways

  Familiarity information: POLITICIAN used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• POLITICIAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A leader engaged in civil administration

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("politician" is a kind of...):

leader (a person who rules or guides or inspires others)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "politician"):

governor (the head of a state government)

legislator (someone who makes or enacts laws)

city manager; mayor (the head of a city government)

Derivation:

politics (the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs)

politics (social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person active in party politics

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

pol; political leader; politician; politico

Hypernyms ("politician" is a kind of...):

leader (a person who rules or guides or inspires others)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "politician"):

Communist (a member of the communist party)

campaigner; candidate; nominee (a politician who is running for public office)

Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin; Grigori Potemkin; Grigori Potyokin; Potemkin; Potyokin (a Russian officer and politician who was a favorite of Catherine II and in 1762 helped her to seize power; when she visited the Crimea in 1787 he gave the order for sham villages to be built (1739-1791))

Whig (a member of the Whig Party that existed in the United States before the American Civil War)

technocrat (an advocate of technocracy)

national leader; solon; statesman (a man who is a respected leader in national or international affairs)

standard-bearer (an outstanding leader of a political movement)

socialist (a political advocate of socialism)

sachem (a political leader (especially of Tammany Hall))

Republican (a member of the Republican Party)

boss; party boss; political boss (a leader in a political party who controls votes and dictates appointments)

noncandidate (someone who has announced they are not a candidate; especially a politician who has announced that he or she is not a candidate for some political office)

Mugwump (someone who bolted from the Republican Party during the U.S. presidential election of 1884)

hack; machine politician; political hack; ward-heeler (a politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends)

Labourite (a member of the British Labour Party)

Federalist (a member of a former political party in the United States that favored a strong centralized federal government)

Democrat (a member of the Democratic Party)

party liner; party man (a member of a political party who follows strictly the party line)

demagog; demagogue; rabble-rouser (a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular passions and prejudices)

Instance hyponyms:

Jackson; Jesse Jackson; Jesse Louis Jackson (United States civil rights leader who led a national campaign against racial discrimination and ran for presidential nomination (born in 1941))

Glenda Jackson; Jackson (English film actress who later became a member of British Parliament (born in 1936))

Andre Maginot; Maginot (French politician who proposed the Maginot Line (1877-1932))

Joseph McCarthy; Joseph Raymond McCarthy; McCarthy (United States politician who unscrupulously accused many citizens of being Communists (1908-1957))

Daniel Patrick Moynihan; Moynihan (United States politician and educator (1927-2003))

Mullah Mohammed Omar; Mullah Omar (reclusive Afghanistani politician and leader of the Taliban who imposed a strict interpretation of shariah law on Afghanistan (born in 1960))

Peel; Robert Peel; Sir Robert Peel (British politician (1788-1850))

Aaron Burr; Burr (United States politician who served as vice president under Jefferson; he mortally wounded his political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel and fled south (1756-1836))

Jeannette Rankin; Rankin (leader in the women's suffrage movement in Montana; the first woman to serve in the United States House of Representatives (1880-1973))

Nellie Ross; Nellie Tayloe Ross; Ross (a politician in Wyoming who was the first woman governor in the United States (1876-1977))

Seward; William Henry Seward (United States politician who as Secretary of State in 1867 arranged for the purchase of Alaska from Russia (known at the time as Seward's Folly) (1801-1872))

Daniel Webster; Webster (United States politician and orator (1782-1817))

Houston; Sam Houston; Samuel Houston (United States politician and military leader who fought to gain independence for Texas from Mexico and to make it a part of the United States (1793-1863))

Douglas; Little Giant; Stephen A. Douglas; Stephen Arnold Douglas (United States politician who proposed that individual territories be allowed to decide whether they would have slavery; he engaged in a famous series of debates with Abraham Lincoln (1813-1861))

Crockett; David Crockett; Davy Crockett (United States frontiersman and Tennessee politician who died at the siege of the Alamo (1786-1836))

Clinton; DeWitt Clinton (United States politician who as governor of New York supported the project to build the Erie Canal (1769-1828))

Clay; Henry Clay; the Great Compromiser (United States politician responsible for the Missouri Compromise between free and slave states (1777-1852))

Charles Joseph Clark; Clark; Joe Clark (Canadian politician who served as prime minister (1939-))

Chase; Salmon P. Chase; Salmon Portland Chase (United States politician and jurist who served as chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1808-1873))

Boy Orator of the Platte; Bryan; Great Commoner; William Jennings Bryan (United States lawyer and politician who advocated free silver and prosecuted John Scopes (1925) for teaching evolution in a Tennessee high school (1860-1925))

Bradley; Thomas Bradley; Tom Bradley (United States politician who was elected the first black mayor of Los Angeles (1917-1998))

1st Baron Beaverbrook; Beaverbrook; William Maxwell Aitken (British newspaper publisher and politician (born in Canada); confidant of Winston Churchill (1879-1964))

Alben Barkley; Alben William Barkley; Barkley (United States politician and lawyer; vice president of the United States (1877-1956))

Astor; Nancy Witcher Astor; Viscountess Astor (British politician (born in the United States) who was the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons (1879-1964))

Derivation:

politics (the profession devoted to governing and to political affairs)

politics (social relations involving intrigue to gain authority or power)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A schemer who tries to gain advantage in an organization in sly or underhanded ways

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("politician" is a kind of...):

plotter; schemer (a planner who draws up a personal scheme of action)

 Context examples 

But it shouldn't prevent politicians from taking action.

(Health threats caused by mobile phone radiation, EUROPARL TV)

I’ve heard that with you German politicians when an agent has done his work you are not sorry to see him put away.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You are the only other person, save only these politicians, who knows the true facts.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The honest taxpayer and the politician, you know.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The test asked for the names of famous people (for example, authors, politicians and actors) based on 20 questions about them.

(Exercise May Help Seniors with Word, Memory Problems, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

He was, I remember, extremely well connected, and even when we were all little boys together we knew that his mother’s brother was Lord Holdhurst, the great conservative politician.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The whole discourse was written with great acuteness, containing many observations, both curious and useful for politicians; but, as I conceived, not altogether complete.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The inconsistency and recklessness of Traddles were not to be exceeded by any real politician.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag politicians who had been sent down from the North.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

What! at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company—the great man—the practised politician, who is to read every body's character, and make every body's talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like fools compared with himself!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)