Word.ws English Dictionary

Beltway bandits

Beltway bandits is the plural of Beltway bandit.

Meaning of Beltway bandit

Noun

Beltway bandit (plural Beltway bandits)

  1. (informal) A consulting or research company that mostly carries out work for US government departments or agencies.
    • He worked for a beltway bandit firm, doing engineering work. He computed trajectories on missiles... that kind of thing.2001, Richard B. Schwartz, After the Fall, page 45
  2. (informal) An employee of such a firm, especially a former employee of the firm's clients.
  3. (informal) A short-term money lender to contractors working for the US government but waiting for US congressional appropriations.
    • [He] turned out to be what is called a "Beltway bandit," lending money at short-term high (but legal) rates to government contractors low on cash who are awaiting congressional appropriation funding.1999 July 1, Po Bronson, “Gen Equity”, in Wired

Questions about Beltway bandits

What is Beltway bandits the plural of?
Beltway bandits is the plural of Beltway bandit.

Words near Beltway bandits in the dictionary

  1. Beltsville Small White
  2. Beltsvilles
  3. Belturbet
  4. beltway
  5. Beltway bandit
  6. Beltway bandits
  7. beltways
  8. beltwise
  9. Beltwood
  10. Beltwoods
  11. beltwork

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Beltway bandits (page history and authors); Beltway bandit (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Beltway bandits.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beltway_bandits. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.