rotten borough

American  

noun

1. (before the Reform Bill of 1832) any English borough that had very few voters yet was represented in Parliament.

2. an election district that has more representatives in a legislative body than the number of its constituents would normally call for.

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rotten borough British  

noun

1. (before the Reform Act of 1832) any of certain English parliamentary constituencies with only a very few electors Compare pocket borough

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Etymology

Origin of rotten borough

First recorded in 1805–15

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

rotten borough

His "rotten borough," with its immemorial animalism, its "idiot," its saints, is propaganda of the universal order.

From Time Magazine Archive

The next session he moves to disfranchise that rotten borough, which had been convicted of bribery, and transfer its members to Leeds.

From Sketches of Reforms and Reformers, of Great Britain and Ireland by Henry B. Stanton

That is to say, he bought a borough—the borough of Old Sarum, the locality that was to become famous as the "rotten borough" of the Reform Bill.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators by Elbert Hubbard

A few of the townspeople, humiliated at seeing their town always treated as a rotten borough, joined the democrats, though enemies to democracy.

From The Deputy of Arcis by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven, All creeds I view with toleration thorough, And have a horror of regarding heaven As anybody's rotten borough.

From The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood by Thomas Hood