Word.ws English Dictionary

snollygoster

snollygoster noun: a shrewd person not guided by principles, especially a politician.

Noun

snollygoster (plural snollygosters)

  1. (obsolete, slang) A shrewd person not guided by principles, especially a politician.
    • […]I called for him to publish his expenses so that all Gloucester voters could see that he isn't a snollygoster (a 19th century term meaning a corrupt politician, the website later explains).2009 May 19, “Tory issues apology after calling Labour rival a "c***"”, in Daily Mirror, archived from the original on 20 Jan 2014, retrieved 06 Feb 2014
    • […] I recently discovered the word “snollygoster”: not a character from “Harry Potter”, but an unprincipled person in office motivated by personal rather than public gain.[2021 May 12, The Hon. Siobhain McDonagh MP, “Fairness at Work and Power in Communities”, in parliamentary debates (Commons Chamber), volume 712, archived from the original on 03 Jul 2022, retrieved...

snollygoster meaning in Tamil and Bengali

snollygoster in Tamil

நெறியற்ற அரசியலார், கொள்கையிலா மாந்தர்

snollygoster in Bengali

একজন অসাধু, অবিশ্বস্ত ব্যক্তি

Forms of snollygoster

pluralsnollygosters

Origin of snollygoster

19th-century American English. Possibly from snallygaster, a mythical beast that preys on poultry and children; possibly from Pennsylvania German schnelle geeschter, from German schnell (“quick”) + Geist (“spirit”). Largely obsolete, it briefly resurfaced in 2009 in Britain as part of a debate over MPs' expenses.

Questions about snollygoster

What does snollygoster mean?
Snollygoster means a shrewd person not guided by principles, especially a politician.
What is snollygoster in Tamil?
Snollygoster in Tamil is நெறியற்ற அரசியலார், கொள்கையிலா மாந்தர். See Snollygoster meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is snollygoster?
Snollygoster is a noun.
What is the plural of snollygoster?
The plural of snollygoster is snollygosters.

Words near snollygoster in the dictionary

  1. Snoj
  2. snoke
  3. snoked
  4. snokes
  5. snoking
  6. snollygoster
  7. snollygosters
  8. Snoman
  9. snoo snoo
  10. snooch
  11. snooches

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: snollygoster (page history and authors); snollygoster (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); snollygoster (Bengali Wiktionary) (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: “snollygoster.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/snollygoster. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.