(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.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.