aldermanic

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English

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WOTD – 22 October 2024

Etymology

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From alderman +‎ -ic (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives).[1]

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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aldermanic (comparative more aldermanic, superlative most aldermanic)

  1. Of or pertaining to an alderman (“member of a municipal legislative body in a city or town”) or group of aldermen.
    Synonyms: (obsolete) aldermanical, aldermanlike, aldermanly
    Antonym: nonaldermanic
    • 1860 December 14, “The Japanese bill growing smaller”, in The New York Times‎[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2019-11-09, page 4, column 5:
      The Board of Councilmen last night made an active attempt to pass a reduced Japanese bill, without giving the items; […] The proposed reduction is a substantial one, cutting down the total of the bill from $105,000, the Aldermanic figure, to $90,000, which must be somewhere in the neighborhood of an honest amount. But why do the Councilmen, while acting to this extent in the public interest, refuse to give us the items as originally rendered by the Reception Committee of the Board of Aldermen?
    • 1943 December 16, Donald Burgoine Hatmaker, witness, “Statement of Donald B. Hatmaker, Washington, D.C.”, in Reorganization of the Government of the District of Columbia: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the District of Columbia, United States Senate, Seventy-eighth Congress, First Session […], Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, published 1944, →OCLC, page 146:
      The first feature that I would say is desirable, as I read it, is that it is a nonpartisan bill, similar to our aldermanic campaigns in Chicago.
    • 2006 July 31, Susan C. Thomson, “Brothers, Who art Thou?”, in St. Louis‎[2], St. Louis, Mo.: St. Louis Magazine, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-09-22:
      Former St. Louis Mayor Vincent Schoemehl remembers them [Michael Victor Roberts and Steven Craig Roberts] from their aldermanic days as sensible. "They weren't get-in-the way guys," he says. "You could approach them with a reasonable proposition and get a reasonable response."
  2. (figurative) Having the (supposed) lifestyle or qualities of an alderman.
    • 2006 July 28, Lynnda Greene, quoting Tom Schlafly, “The Rise of the Creative Class”, in St. Louis‎[3], St. Louis, Mo.: St. Louis Magazine, Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-06-06:
      Let's just say the city is not well served by the tradition of aldermanic courtesy.
    1. Of a person or animal's body, girth, etc.: fleshy, plump, rotund.
      • 1911, Samuel G[ranger] Camp, The Fine Art of Fishing, New York, N.Y.: Outing Publishing Company, →OCLC:
        The male trout of this weight, however finely marked with various tints of blue, crimson, and gold, tends dangerously to aldermanic girth […]
      • 1947 October 25, “Nicknamed ‘Marrow Jack’”, in The Mail, volume 36, number 1,848, Adelaide, S.A.: News Limited, →OCLC, page 1, columns 3–4:
        True to his Scots ancestry, Mr. McLeay [i.e., John McLeay Sr.] said his gardening was strictly utilitarian. In the first place it had been the means of reducing his still aldermanic figure by a stone in weight to about 16½ st.
    2. Of a thing: extravagant; sumptuous.
      • 1819, Miching Mallecho [pseudonym; Percy Bysshe Shelley], “Peter Bell the Third”, in [Mary] Shelley, editor, The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. […], new edition, London: Edward Moxon […], published 1840, →OCLC, part the third (Hell), stanza 13, page 240, column 2:
        Lunches and snacks so aldermanic / That one would furnish forth ten dinners, […]

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “aldermanic, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023; “aldermanic, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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