bipartisan
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What does bipartisan mean? Bipartisan means including two parties or factions, especially ones that typically oppose each other. Bipartisan is used in the context of political systems that have two dominant parties. Bipartisan is most often used to describe actions or solutions intended to counteract partisan politics, which refers to a situation in which members of each party vote along party lines and refuse to compromise. Example: Approving the budget before the deadline will take a bipartisan effort.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of bipartisan
First recorded in 1905–10; bi- 1 + partisan 1
Explanation
If something is bipartisan, it has the support of two political parties that normally don’t agree on much. You might read about a bipartisan plan to improve the school system where you live. The word bipartisan is easy to figure out when you break it apart: bi-, meaning “two,” plus partisan, meaning "supporter of a party." So something that’s bipartisan involves two parties finding enough common ground to support the same thing. A key aspect of something that’s bipartisan is that the two parties involved typically hold opposing views about the best way to do things, so a bipartisan agreement is one that likely involved a lot of effort, compromise, and cooperation.
Vocabulary lists containing bipartisan
It Takes Two: Bi
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One Nation, Under Vocabulary: Political Parlance
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President Trump's Second State of the Union Address (2019)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In June, both chambers of Congress approved the housing bill - called the 21st Century Road to Housing Act - in a rare moment of bipartisan agreement.
From BBC ● Jul. 11, 2026
Visiting Israel has been a bipartisan rite for members of Congress for decades.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 2026
“The question has not been tested as to whether political entities created with bipartisan balance might be subject to another exception.”
From Salon ● Jul. 11, 2026
Supporting families is one of the few bipartisan issues of our time.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
Because nothing like the full-blooded machinery of a modern political party system existed, Adams conveyed his tentative scheme for a bipartisan initiative informally through letters and conversations sure to be picked up by the press.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
