Word.ws English Dictionary

dark money

dark money noun: funds used to pay for an election campaign that are not disclosed to voters prior to voting, whether spent on behalf of a candidate running in an election, or to influence voting on a ballot.

Noun

dark money (uncountable)

  1. (US) Funds used to pay for an election campaign that are not disclosed to voters prior to voting, whether spent on behalf of a candidate running in an election, or to influence voting on a ballot.
    • In Colorado, at least $18 million in dark money was spent on behalf of Cory Gardner, the Republican newly elected to the Senate; $4 million was spent on behalf of Senator Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent.2014 November 8, “Dark Money Helped Win the Senate”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • The Senate budget committee held a hearing on Wednesday morning to scrutinize the role of oil- and gas-linked “dark money” in delaying climate action – and tearing through local and federal budgets.2023 June 21, Dharna Noor, “Senate examines role of ‘dark money’ in delaying climate action”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

Questions about dark money

What does dark money mean?
Dark money means funds used to pay for an election campaign that are not disclosed to voters prior to voting, whether spent on behalf of a candidate running in an election, or to influence voting on a ballot.
What part of speech is dark money?
Dark money is a noun.

Words near dark money in the dictionary

  1. dark markets
  2. dark matter
  3. dark meat
  4. dark meats
  5. dark mode
  6. dark money
  7. dark moon
  8. dark moons
  9. dark nebula
  10. dark nebulae
  11. dark nebulas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dark money (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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Cite this entry: “dark money.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dark_money. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.