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
Manning, who currently represents the 6th District, said last week that she would change her mind and run again for Congress should litigation alleging the retooled 6th District is an illegal racial gerrymander is successful.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 14, 2023
The infamous discussion between three council members and a labor leader focused, after all, on how best to gerrymander the politicians’ districts to benefit them and their Latino allies and hurt their rival colleagues.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2022
When I asked Lewis about this on a 2019 panel at the University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill, he worked himself into a moral dudgeon over being accused of a racial gerrymander.
From Salon ● Aug. 29, 2021
Under such a system all unfairness would disappear, and the gerrymander would be impossible.
From Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government by T. R. (Thomas Ramsden) Ashworth
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
The group has also joined lawsuits claiming racial gerrymanders of House districts in Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana, and is mounting grass-roots efforts to enact electoral reforms.
From New York Times ● Jun. 30, 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
Members wrote folk songs and dressed up in costumes as gerrymandered districts to draw attention to the effort.
From New York Times ● Dec. 29, 2021
The map they form can at times resemble gerrymandered congressional districts, with it not unusual for neighboring farms to get water from canals that lead to mountains and reservoirs in opposite directions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 3, 2021
There are no gerrymandered voting districts in elections for senators.
From Textbooks ● Jul. 28, 2021
Professor Commons states that whenever the periodical rearrangement of constituencies takes place the boundaries are "gerrymandered."
From Proportional Representation A Study in Methods of Election by John H. Humphreys
“When you’re gerrymandering, you’re making a bet that you know what the politics of the future will look like, and it’s hard to predict,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
In 2020, Virginia voters amended the state constitution to put redistricting in the hands of a bipartisan commission to reduce partisan gerrymandering.
From Slate ● Apr. 22, 2026
Speaking with a local radio show, he said “I don’t know if you know what gerrymandering is, but it’s not good.”
From Salon ● Apr. 22, 2026
Until that happens, the constitutional rules against legislative gerrymandering remain in force.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 13, 2026
In order to prevent gerrymandering it was agreed that this Commission should not only be quite independent of both parties, but that it should have absolute powers.
From Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 by Stuart J. (Stuart Johnson) Reid
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.
