Dictionary

boodler en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

Etymology tree English boodle Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzios Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English boodler From boodle + -er.

Meanings

1. One, especially a politician, who seeks or receives boodle; a political grafter.
   • I guess it kept him reminded about his graft whenever he saw the siren voice of the boodler tip him the wink with a bribe in its hand. 1904 November, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “The Phonograph and the Graft”, in Cabbages and Kings, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., page 124:
   • One might suppose that this flood of summonses caused consternation. It did not, because the boodlers were too strongly entrenched to fear an attack; bribery had been too long rampant to expect a sudden pruning and too many prominent St. Louisans were involved to permit the esclandre going very far. 1904, Claude Hazeltine Wetmore, chapter IV, in The Battle Against Bribery: Being the Only Complete Narrative of Joseph W. Folk's Warfare on Boodlers, Including Also the Story of the Get-rich-quick Concerns and the Exposure of Bribery in the Missouri Legislature:
   • "Hey, Pinski! You old boodler! How much do you expect to get out of this traction business?" (This from a voice somewhere in the rear.) Mr. Pinski (turning to one side as if pinched in the neck). "The man that says I am a boodler is a liar! I never took a dishonest dollar in my life, and everybody in the Fourteenth Ward knows it." 1914, Theodore Dreiser, chapter LXI, in The Titan:
   • Boodlers, according to the dealers in boodle, are divided into two categories, the honest and the dishonest boodlers. The honest boodler is the alderman who, when bought, stays bought,' and does not sell out to the other side; the dishonest boodler is perfectly willing to take money from both sides and dispose of his vote, not according to the first bid, but the last. 1894, William T. Stead, If Christ Came to Chicago: A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer, Part III, Chapter 1:
2. (dated, obsolete, slang) A person displaying unsportsmanlike behavior.

Forms

Deriveds

boodlerism