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.

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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.

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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

"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

“Even though these landlords are not getting together in the proverbial smoke-filled room and saying, ‘We all need to raise our rents by $100,’ they’re colluding by using the same software that aggregates their data,” he said.

From Slate

We even have the cliched “smoke-filled room” where this used to happen.

From Slate

For decades during the 1900s the process was dominated by state and local party bosses, giving rise to the notion of the “smoke-filled room,” where top leaders were said to huddle secretly to determine their presidential candidate.

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• campaigning
• government