gerrymander
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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gerrymanders,
present (3rd person singular)
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gerrymandered,
past participle, past
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gerrymandering
present participle
verb
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to divide the constituencies of (a voting area) so as to give one party an unfair advantage
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to manipulate or adapt to one's advantage
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gerrymandersimple
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gerrymanderssimple
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have gerrymanderedperfect
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has gerrymanderedperfect
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am gerrymanderingprogressive
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are gerrymanderingprogressive
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is gerrymanderingprogressive
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have been gerrymanderingperfect progressive
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has been gerrymanderingperfect progressive
Past
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gerrymanderedsimple
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had gerrymanderedperfect
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was gerrymanderingprogressive
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were gerrymanderingprogressive
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had been gerrymanderingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gerrymander
1812, after E. Gerry (governor of Massachusetts, whose party redistricted the state in 1812) + (sala)mander, from the fancied resemblance of the map of Essex County, Mass., to this animal, after the redistricting
Explanation
Some politicians change the boundaries of their voting districts in order to benefit themselves or their political party. To manipulate the boundaries like this — often viewed as unfair — is to gerrymander. The verb gerrymander first appeared in 1812 when Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry redrew district boundaries, hoping it would help his party in an upcoming senate election. Then somebody noticed that the new district looked like a salamander, so they combined Gerry and -mander to create the new word gerrymander. And then a newspaper printed a cartoon with a giant salamander making fun of Gerry, which is what happens to politicians who don’t behave.
Vocabulary lists containing gerrymander
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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.
See Examples For:
But that same precedent mostly allowed lawmakers to gerrymander for the purpose of ensuring minority citizens had minority representation corresponding to their share of the population.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
For his part, Graves said he never believed his map was an illegal racial gerrymander, as Garcia’s lawsuit asserts.
From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2024
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Alabama can’t use its congressional map with only one majority Black district, reasoning it was likely a discriminatory racial gerrymander that runs afoul of the Voting Rights Act.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 8, 2023
Would open nonpartisan primaries using ranked voting eliminate some of the incentives to gerrymander?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 13, 2022
Will those who seek to excuse the injustice done to the minority in each electorate by the present system of election seriously contend that the same argument justifies the gerrymander?
From Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government by T. R. (Thomas Ramsden) Ashworth
Justice McAllister did not explicitly find the State Senate or Assembly maps to be unconstitutional gerrymanders.
From New York Times ● Mar. 31, 2022
The current gerrymander suit was filed long after Earls left the social justice coalition, but while there, she worked on challenges to the state’s gerrymanders with a lawyer in the current case, Allison Riggs.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 29, 2022
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice is holding dozens of seminars across eight states that include how to identify gerrymanders using mapping software, said Jeff Loperfido, the group's senior counsel.
From Reuters ● Aug. 13, 2021
In some states, however, such as Michigan, the gerrymanders have been so heavy-handed and awkward that “those dikes could break,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2018
A striking instance of this is furnished by the power to nullify legislative gerrymanders.
From The American Judiciary by Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
Imagine, then, that rather than drawing Texas into 38 gerrymandered districts, with each holding an election for one representative, Texas instead held one election—statewide—wherein all of its voters chose all of its 38 representatives.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2025
The Reichstag, or national parliament, was grossly gerrymandered in favor of the upper classes, and the government was not responsible to its lawmakers, but rather to a capricious monarch.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2025
For the other implications of the Wisconsin race, especially for the state’s heavily gerrymandered legislative maps, I recommend Reid’s latest article.
From New York Times ● Apr. 6, 2023
The first Latino supervisor, Gloria Molina, was elected in 1991 after a lawsuit alleging that the supervisors had gerrymandered district lines to keep the growing Latino population from power.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 15, 2021
In Ohio, McKinley lost his seat, partly from the revulsion of feeling, but more because the Democrats, who controlled the State Legislature, had gerrymandered his district against him.
From The New Nation by William E. Dodd
But his prior comments, as well his efforts to end gerrymandering across the nation since leaving office, have made clear that his views have not changed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026
If we want durable protection for the rights of all voters and durable constraints on racial gerrymandering, we need an act of Congress.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 6, 2026
But here’s the confusing part about the Rucho court’s legal treatment of gerrymandering.
From Slate ● Apr. 29, 2026
On Tuesday night, he promised to “work across party lines to find a national solution to the age-old plague of gerrymandering, and in particular, to the more recent affliction of mid-decade gerrymandering.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2025
The Croats found themselves no match for the astute Magyars who resorted to packed diets, gerrymandering, bribery, and forgery.
From The Russian Revolution; the Jugo-Slav Movement by Robert Joseph Kerner
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.
