spoilsman
Americannoun
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spoilsmen
plural
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a person who seeks or receives a share in political spoils.
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an advocate of the spoils system in politics.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of spoilsman
1835–45, spoils ( def. ) + -man
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:
Scuttlebutt had it that he had been summoned in an effort to get him to stop Tennessee's Senator Kenneth McKellar, the Senate's premier spoilsman, from trying to wreck TVA.
From Time Magazine Archive
The crusty old spoilsman swept aside the Narcotics Bureau report, quavering, "Papers, just papers."
From Time Magazine Archive
Barkley chatted calmly with Tennessee's truculent spoilsman, Kenneth McKellar, at the desk on his left.
From Time Magazine Archive
But it was left for the Senate's master spoilsman, bulb-nosed Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, to launch a bill that was even more alarming to large chunks of official Washington.
From Time Magazine Archive
The decision of Arthur to take counsel from the Stalwarts aroused fears among others of the party that his would be the administration of a spoilsman.
From The New Nation by Dodd, William E.
Its leaders were party bosses and spoilsmen; in the burgeoning economy of the Reconstruction Era, many a robber baron found that a state legislature could be bought and, with it, a Senate seat.
From Time Magazine Archive
Out of the fight he carried an abiding hatred of political spoilsmen, an abiding conviction that lasting reform can be achieved only when the electorate has been taught to understand and want it.
From Time Magazine Archive
The spoilsmen got busy at killing the bill.
From Time Magazine Archive
He fired 3,000 Davey employes, cut the state payroll by $3,000,000, smashed the "legal rackets" that Davey's spoilsmen had enjoyed.
From Time Magazine Archive
The spoilsmen suspended their hideous labor—the victims, moved doubtless by a hope of rescue, gave over their lamentations and struggling—only the young children, and the wounded, and suffering persisted in vexing the floor and galleries.
From The Prince of India — Volume 02 by Wallace, Lewis
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.
