Tammany Hall

American  

noun

1. a Democratic political organization in New York City, founded in 1789 as a fraternal benevolent society Tammany Society and associated especially in the late 1800s and early 1900s with corruption and abuse of power.

2. the building in which the Tammany organization had its headquarters.

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Tammany Hall British  

/ ˈtæmənɪ /

noun

1. Also called: Tammany.  politics the central organization of the Democratic Party in New York county. Originally founded as a benevolent society ( Tammany Society ) in 1789, Tammany Hall was notorious for the corruption in city and state politics that it fostered in the 19th and early 20th centuries

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Other Word Forms

• Tammanyism
  noun
• Tammanyite
  noun

Etymology

Origin of Tammany Hall

Named after Tammany (variant of Tamanen, Tammenund ), 17th-century Delaware Indian chief, later facetiously canonized as patron saint of U.S.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Tammany Hall

Yet Crumb is perhaps most directly indebted to the 19th-century political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who helped bring down Tammany Hall and New York’s Boss Tweed political machine.

From New York Times ● Sep. 15, 2022

Goldmacher points out, however, that while Tammany Hall kept its grip on power by doling out patronage, Trump isn't spending much of his massive war chest at all.

From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2022

Yet while Tammany Hall, a New York City political machine that endured for nearly two centuries, owed its longevity to its spreading around of patronage, Trump can be downright stingy.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 17, 2022

Politicians involved in what George Washington Plunkitt, the legendary 19th-century leader of New York’s Tammany Hall, called “honest graft” are cast as gleeful cynics who were refreshingly candid about their motivations.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2020

And so, if I overheard mention of something I was ignorant about—keeping Kosher, Tammany Hall, haute couture— I researched it later on.

From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls