Word.ws English Dictionary

boodler

boodler noun: one, especially a politician, who seeks or receives boodle; a political grafter.

Noun

boodler (plural boodlers)

  1. One, especially a politician, who seeks or receives boodle; a political grafter.
    • 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...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
    • 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
  2. (dated, obsolete, slang) A person displaying unsportsmanlike behavior.

Examples of boodler in a sentence

  • Boodlers, according to the dealers in boodle, are divided into two categories, the honest and the dishonest boodlers.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...
  • 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.1904, Claude Hazeltine Wetmore, chapter IV, in The Battle Against Bribery: Being the Only Complete Narrative of Joseph W. Folk's Warfare on...

Forms of boodler

pluralboodlers

Origin of boodler

From boodle + -er.

Words formed from boodler

Questions about boodler

What does boodler mean?
Boodler means one, especially a politician, who seeks or receives boodle; a political grafter.
How do you use boodler in a sentence?
Boodlers, according to the dealers in boodle, are divided into two categories, the honest and the dishonest boodlers.
What part of speech is boodler?
Boodler is a noun.
What is the plural of boodler?
The plural of boodler is boodlers.

Words near boodler in the dictionary

  1. boodled
  2. boodleize
  3. boodleized
  4. boodleizes
  5. boodleizing
  6. boodler
  7. boodlerism
  8. boodlers
  9. boodlery
  10. boodles
  11. boodling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: boodler (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-boodler.ogg.

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