rotten borough
nounEtymology
From rotten (“in a state of decay”) + borough (“type of administrative district”), because such boroughs were regarded as having “decayed” due to their voters moving away to other places.
Definitions
A parliamentary borough that was represented in Parliament although the number of voters…
A parliamentary borough that was represented in Parliament although the number of voters had diminished so greatly that they were largely controlled by the main landowner; such boroughs were abolished in the 19th century.
A parliamentary constituency or electoral district in a similar situation.
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for rotten borough. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA