gerrymander
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: compound
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰey-
Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeys-
Proto-Indo-European *-ós
Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰoysós
Proto-Germanic *gaizaz
Proto-Indo-European *h₂welh₁-
Proto-Indo-European *h₂wl̥h₁-t-
Proto-Germanic *wulþǭder.?
Proto-Indo-European *welH-der.
Proto-Indo-European *wélH-dʰe-tider.
Proto-Indo-European *we-wólH-dʰe-ti?
Proto-Germanic *waldanąder.
Proto-Germanic *waldaz
Proto-Germanic *Gaizawaldaz
Frankish *Gaiʀawaldbor.
Old French Geraldbor.
English Gerald
▲
Proto-Germanic *gaizaz
Frankish *gaiʀ
Proto-Indo-European *kret-der.?
Proto-Germanic *harduz
Proto-Germanic *-jaz
Frankish *-ī
Frankish *hard(ī)
Frankish *Gaiʀahardbor.
Old French Gerartder.
Middle English Gerard
English Gerard
Old English -iġ
Middle English -y
English -y
English Gerry
Ancient Greek σαλαμάνδρα (salamándra)bor.
Latin salamandra
Anglo-Norman salamandrebor.
Middle English salamandre
English salamander
blend
English gerrymander
Blend of Gerry + salamander, named after Elbridge Gerry, then governor of Massachusetts. Coined by the editors of the Boston Gazette in an 26 March 1812 article comparing the new electoral district boundary signed into law by Gerry to the shape of the mythological salamander. The original text was likely written by Nathan Hale and Benjamin and John Russell, accompanying a cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale.
Despite Gerry's surname beginning with a hard G (/ɡ/), gerrymander is typically pronounced with a soft G (/dʒ/), as a spelling pronunciation.
Compound parts: Gerry
salamander
Inflected forms:
form: gerrymanders
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: gerrymandering
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: gerrymandered
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: gerrymandered
pos: verb
tags: past
form: Gerrymander
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: gerrymanders
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: Gerrymander
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: To divide a geographic area into voting districts in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
pos: verb
tags: derogatory
transitive
examples: Prop 50 would implement a newly gerrymandered map that would hold until the next decennial census, in 2030, when an independent commission would again draw the lines. […] [Will] O’Neill isn’t necessarily wrong. Democrats readily concede that they are betraying principles of good governance in trying to gerrymander California.
gloss: To draw dividing lines for other types of districts in an unintuitive way to favor a particular group or for other perceived gain.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
derogatory
transitive
examples: The superintendent helped gerrymander the school district lines in order to keep the children of the wealthy gated community in the better school all the way across town.
gloss: To change the franchise or voting system in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
derogatory
transitive
examples: [The Reform Bill's] main purpose will be so to gerrymander the electorate as to give the greatest possible assistance to the Radical party at the next election.
But Remainers often picture [Brexit] instead as the upshot of a poorly framed question put to an ill-informed, and underrepresentative segment of the population – even the product of a 'gerrymander'.
Congress delegated to the first legislature the task of setting up elections under territorial law, which it did. But Montana Democrats couldn't pass up the opportunity to gerrymander the rules.
gloss: To deliberately bring in voters of one's own party or displace voters of another party from a voting district in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
pos: verb
tags: Ireland
UK
broadly
derogatory
transitive
examples: Westminster City Council has been accused by the District Auditor of using public money to gerrymander marginal wards for the 1990 Borough elections. The strategy of attempting to 'gentrify' eight key wards, selling off council homes and hostels for the homeless to move out potential Labour voters and attract in more Conservative voters, was in conflict with the council's statutory duty to homeless people
Fermanagh Council even went so far as to create the new village of Donagh in an attempt to move Catholics out of Newtownbutler, four miles away, so unionists could gerrymander a majority.
gloss: The act of gerrymandering.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
gloss: A voting district skewed by gerrymandering.
pos: noun
tags: derogatory
examples: Any citizen looking at a map of district 12 could immediately tell that it was a gerrymander because of the ridiculous way it cut across four counties while carving up neighborhoods in half.
Courts have repeatedly struck down Republican-drawn maps on the grounds that they constitute illegal racial gerrymanders designed to dilute the electoral power of Black voters, who overwhelmingly cast Democratic ballots.
Related words: redistricting
Derived words: dummymander
gerrymanderer
gerrymandering
-mander
Bjelkemander
gerrymanderism
Playmander
Translations: