Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
machine politician en · NOUN
Meanings
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(US) A politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends.
It wasn't that these ward bosses were universally bad men, but the qualities that made for a successful machine politician or boss were the opposite of those that made for an honest public servant.
2021, Mark Lawrence Schrad, Smashing the Liquor Machine: A Global History of Prohibition, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 413:
Forms
Relateds
political machine