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.
“Only Congress can suspend the federal gas tax, and it has never done so,” analysts at the Bipartisan Policy Center said in a recent note.
From MarketWatch • May 11, 2026
Prior to his appointment to the central bank in 2012 by then-president Obama, Powell was a scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center think tank.
From Barron's • Apr. 29, 2026
Bipartisan legislation that would require car manufacturers to keep the AM band in their dashboards is moving forward.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 22, 2026
Bipartisan efforts are in motion to limit or ban External link many of these types of transactions, following state efforts across the country.
From Barron's • Apr. 7, 2026
We must be willing to work in a bipartisan way and look at new ideas, including the upcoming report of the Bipartisan Medicare Commission.
From State of the Union Address by Clinton, William Jefferson
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.
