gerrymander
Syllables: ger·ry·man·derUK/ˈd͡ʒɛɹiˌmændə//ˈd͡ʒɛɹiˌmændəɹ/
gerrymander verb: to divide a geographic area into voting districts in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
Verb (1)
gerrymander (third-person singular simple present gerrymanders, present participle gerrymandering, simple past and past participle gerrymandered)
- To divide a geographic area into voting districts in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
- Prop 50 would implement a newly gerrymandered map that would hold until the next decennial census, in 2030, when an independent commission would again draw the lines. […] [Will] O’Neill isn’t necessarily wrong. Democrats readily concede that they are betraying principles of good governance in...2025 October 27, Russell Berman, “‘California Is Allowed to Hit Back’”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2025
- To draw dividing lines for other types of districts in an unintuitive way to favor a particular group or for other perceived gain.
- The superintendent helped gerrymander the school district lines in order to keep the children of the wealthy gated community in the better school all the way across town.
- To change the franchise or voting system in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
- [The Reform Bill's] main purpose will be so to gerrymander the electorate as to give the greatest possible assistance to the Radical party at the next election.1912, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art
- But Remainers often picture [Brexit] instead as the upshot of a poorly framed question put to an ill-informed, and underrepresentative segment of the population – even the product of a 'gerrymander'.2018 November 1, Patrick Dunleavy, Alice Park, Ros Taylor, The UK's Changing Democracy: The 2018 Democratic Audit, LSE Press, →ISBN, page 257
- To deliberately bring in voters of one's own party or displace voters of another party from a voting district in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
- Westminster City Council has been accused by the District Auditor of using public money to gerrymander marginal wards for the 1990 Borough elections. The strategy of attempting to 'gentrify' eight key wards, selling off council homes and hostels for the homeless to move out potential Labour voters...2000, Hugo de Burgh, Investigative Journalism: Context and Practice, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 207
- Fermanagh Council even went so far as to create the new village of Donagh in an attempt to move Catholics out of Newtownbutler, four miles away, so unionists could gerrymander a majority.2022 December 1, Trevor Birney, Quinn, Merrion Press, →ISBN
Noun (1)
gerrymander (plural gerrymanders)
- The act of gerrymandering.
- A voting district skewed by gerrymandering.
- Any citizen looking at a map of district 12 could immediately tell that it was a gerrymander because of the ridiculous way it cut across four counties while carving up neighborhoods in half.
- Courts have repeatedly struck down Republican-drawn maps on the grounds that they constitute illegal racial gerrymanders designed to dilute the electoral power of Black voters, who overwhelmingly cast Democratic ballots.2025 October 27, Russell Berman, “‘California Is Allowed to Hit Back’”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2025
Verb (2) capitalized: Gerrymander
Gerrymander (third-person singular simple present Gerrymanders, present participle Gerrymandering, simple past and past participle Gerrymandered)
- Obsolete form of gerrymander.
- The latter attempted (at June Session) to provide for the appointment of Madisonian Electors by the Legislature; they attempted also to Gerrymander the State for the choice of Representatives to Congress; […]1812 December 28, New-York Evening Post, number 3248, New York, N.Y., →OCLC, page [3], column 1
- When a man has been swindled out of his rights by a villain, he says he has been Gerrymandered.1813 April 8, Boston Gazette, Boston, Mass., →OCLC; quoted in “Gerrymander, v.”, in C[harles] T[albut] Onions, William Craigie, editors, The Oxford English Dictionary […] Supplement and Bibliography...
Noun (2) capitalized: Gerrymander
Gerrymander (plural Gerrymanders)
- Obsolete form of gerrymander.
- The sensibility of the good people of Massachusetts is at present too much awakened to this ‘Gerrymander’ to require [etc.].1812 May 23, Columbian Centinel, Boston, Mass., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 2, column 3; quoted in “+Gerrymander, n.”, in William A[lexander] Craigie, James R[oot] Hulbert, editors, A Dictionary of American...
- The Senate proposed an election by Congressional or Gerrymander districts, which was refused by the house, as a novel as well as unfair mode of election; […]1812 October 24, “Electors of President”, in New-York Evening Post, number 3194, New York, N.Y., →OCLC, page [2], column 5
Examples of gerrymander in a sentence
- Democrats readily concede that they are betraying principles of good governance in trying to gerrymander California.2025 October 27, Russell Berman, “‘California Is Allowed to Hit Back’”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2025:
- But Montana Democrats couldn't pass up the opportunity to gerrymander the rules.2021 October 29, Jeffrey S. Sutton, Who Decides?: States As Laboratories of Constitutional Experimentation, Oxford University Press, →ISBN...
- Westminster City Council has been accused by the District Auditor of using public money to gerrymander marginal wards for the 1990 Borough elections.2000, Hugo de Burgh, Investigative Journalism: Context and Practice, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 207:
Forms of gerrymander
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | gerrymanders |
| present participle | gerrymandering |
| past participle | gerrymandered |
| past | gerrymandered |
| third-person singular present | Gerrymanders |
| present participle | Gerrymandering |
| past participle | Gerrymandered |
| past | Gerrymandered |
| alternative form (obsolete) | Gerrymander |
| Noun | |
| plural | gerrymanders |
| plural | Gerrymanders |
Origin of gerrymander
Blend of Gerry + salamander, named after Elbridge Gerry, then governor of Massachusetts. Coined by the editors of the Boston Gazette in an 26 March 1812 article comparing the new electoral district boundary signed into law by Gerry to the shape of the mythological salamander. The original text was likely written by Nathan Hale and Benjamin and John Russell, accompanying a cartoon by Elkanah Tisdale. Despite Gerry's surname beginning with a hard G (/ɡ/), gerrymander is typically pronounced with a soft G (/dʒ/), as a spelling pronunciation.
Words formed from gerrymander
Questions about gerrymander
- What does gerrymander mean?
- Gerrymander means to divide a geographic area into voting districts in such a way as to give an unfair advantage to one party in an election.
- How do you use gerrymander in a sentence?
- Democrats readily concede that they are betraying principles of good governance in trying to gerrymander California.
- What part of speech is gerrymander?
- Gerrymander can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce gerrymander?
- Gerrymander is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛɹiˌmændə/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of gerrymander?
- The past tense of gerrymander is gerrymandered.
Words near gerrymander in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gerrymander (page history and authors); Gerrymander (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-gerrymander.ogg, en-au-gerrymander.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gerrymander.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gerrymander. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.