night watchman state
night watchman state noun: government that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.
Noun
night watchman state (plural night watchman states)
- Government that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.
- The doctrines of conservative liberalism were propounded by the late nineteenth century's leading intellectual proponents of the night watchman state.1992, Mark A. Graber, Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 18
- For these neoLiberal^([sic]) Democrats of the Orange Book school remain determined to junk social liberalism for economic liberalism. Their guiding light is the Gladstonian ideal of a low tax, laissez-faire, “night-watchman state”.2011 February 1, Tristram Hunt, “The coalition holds Britain's cultural fabric in contempt”, in The Guardian
- Synonyms:
- minarchy, minimal state
Synonyms of night watchman state
Forms of night watchman state
| plural | night watchman states |
|---|---|
| alternative form | night-watchman state |
Origin of night watchman state
Calque of German Nachtwächterstaat, which was coined by German socialist Ferdinand Lassalle in an 1862 speech in Berlin. He used this term to criticize the idea of a state with minimal government, comparing it to a night watchman whose sole duty was preventing theft.
Questions about night watchman state
- What does night watchman state mean?
- Night watchman state means government that is limited to a bare minimum of functions, usually just military, police, and courts.
- What part of speech is night watchman state?
- Night watchman state is a noun.
- What is the plural of night watchman state?
- The plural of night watchman state is night watchman states.
Words near night watchman state in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: night watchman state (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: “night watchman state.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/night_watchman_state. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.