spoilsman
Americannoun
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spoilsmen
plural
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a person who seeks or receives a share in political spoils.
-
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:
Barkley chatted calmly with Tennessee's truculent spoilsman, Kenneth McKellar, at the desk on his left.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
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 crusty old spoilsman swept aside the Narcotics Bureau report, quavering, "Papers, just papers."
From Time Magazine Archive
Another friend obtained for him political appointment as surveyor of the Salem customhouse; again he was replaced by a spoilsman, and again he complained bitterly.
From Outlines of English and American Literature : an Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived by William Joseph Long
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
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
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
But Governor Dewey got the men he wanted, and the spoilsmen in his party got the idea.
From Time Magazine Archive
"The era of patronage mongering in the petty offices ceased suddenly, and the spoilsmen had the right to say that in this respect the policy of McKinley had not been followed."
From Theodore Roosevelt and His Times by Harold Howland
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