Word.ws English Dictionary

political animal

political animal noun: a person driven by political motives.

Noun

political animal (plural political animals)

  1. A person driven by political motives.

Forms of political animal

pluralpolitical animals

Origin of political animal

Calque of Ancient Greek πολιτικὸν ζῷον (politikòn zōîon), originally a concept taken from Aristotle at various places (History of Animals, Politics), though later as character type – possibly inherited in political families – introduced into everyday politics without philosophical background.

Questions about political animal

What does political animal mean?
Political animal means a person driven by political motives.
What part of speech is political animal?
Political animal is a noun.
What is the plural of political animal?
The plural of political animal is political animals.

Words near political animal in the dictionary

  1. politest
  2. Politi
  3. Politian
  4. politic
  5. political
  6. political animal
  7. political animals
  8. political arithmetic
  9. political asylum
  10. political base
  11. political bases

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: political animal (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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