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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

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

From The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe by Parton, James

He will find no quiet clique of the exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts.

From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 by Stevenson, Robert Louis

Stonehenge was in the district of Old Sarum, once a rotten borough, as certain places in England were termed which, with little or no population, had yet the right to be represented in Parliament.

From Reminiscences, 1819-1899 by Howe, Julia Ward

The electors for the borough of Southwark rejected Mr. Tierney, and he was obliged to come in for a ministerial rotten borough.

From Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. — Volume 2 by Hunt, Henry