smoke-filled room

American  

[smohk-fild, -fild] / ˈsmoʊkˌfɪld, -ˈfɪld /

noun

1. a place, as a hotel room, for conducting secret negotiations, effecting compromises, devising strategy, etc.

---

smoke-filled room Cultural  

1. A popular expression used to describe a place where the political wheeling and dealing of machine bosses (see machine politics) is conducted. The image originated during the Republican presidential nominating convention of 1920, in which Warren G. Harding emerged as a dark horse candidate.

---

Etymology

Origin of smoke-filled room

First recorded in 1915–20

Example Sentences

Maybe CFB should go Waymo, blame the robots for any uproar about gatekeeping and big-school elitism and let the smoke-filled room return to cognacs and afternoon naps.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 22, 2025

"We didn't want people fumbling about in the dark, in possibly a smoke-filled room, trying to undo a lock," she said.

From BBC • Oct. 15, 2025

A rural Ohio newspaperman who had risen to U.S. senator, Harding was a reluctant compromise candidate during the 1920 Republican convention in Chicago, emerging from a proverbially smoke-filled room.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 13, 2023

Back in the old days of the trusts, it would be the proverbial smoke-filled room with a bunch of fat dudes in three piece suits, smoking cigars, fixing prices.

From New York Times • Mar. 20, 2023

So Julie and Joan rushed down the little attic-stairs, back through the smoke-filled room which was now dreadfully hot from the fire, and out of the other room window to the piazza roof.

From Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks by Roy, Lillian Elizabeth

Related Words

• campaigning
• government