10 Political Terms With Curious Origins

The words we use in the context of politics reveal much of the history of how humans have attempted to govern themselves. Many originate from ancient Greece and Rome, where the first representative assemblies closely matching our own arose. The very word “politics” comes from the Greek polities, meaning “city, citizen.” The Romans gave us “republic” from the Latin respublica, “the common interest.”

As the political traditions of classical antiquity influenced the fledgling representative governments in the early modern times, more new words were coined that reflect the growing sophistication in the art of governance.

Related: 10 Interesting Political Traditions from Around the World

10 Candidate

In ancient Rome, someone running for public office obviously wanted to present himself as being of pure and unsullied reputation, virtuous and honest. He, therefore, wore a spotless white toga that brightened even more with chalk as a symbol of blameless character whenever he went out to campaign. He was called a candidatus, a Latin adjective meaning “dressed in a white toga,” derived from candere—”to be bright or white”—the same word that gave us candle and incandescent. It is also the origin of candor and candid, which today’s politicians would do well to remember when making promises.

When candidate entered the English language in the 17th century, it still meant someone seeking public office but lost all its connotations to white togas and bright chalk.^[1]

9 Vote/Ballot

The word denoting one’s choice for a candidate comes from the Latin votus, which originally meant a vow or promise made to a god. In ancient Rome, these were either public or private vows, and they were fairly common. Whenever the State was in danger, people sought the gods’ intervention. They publicly pledged thank-offerings if the State survived and remained prosperous for the next five to ten years. Offerings usually consisted of cattle, tithes of the spoils taken from the enemy, banquets, games, or the dedication of a temple. Vota were also made on behalf of the emperor and his family.

Private vota made for personal reasons were carefully recorded, and Roman temples were repositories for votive tablets that accompanied their fulfillment. In the mid-15th century, the word vote had taken on its present meaning, where we entrust the well-being of the State to flesh-and-blood politicians instead of to the gods, relying on the power of the ballot, today meaning the piece of paper where votes are written.

Ancient Greeks practiced a “negative election” where they voted for who they wanted to stay out of public affairs and go into exile for ten years instead of who served in office. They wrote the name of the blacklisted fellow on broken pieces of pottery called ostrakon; hence our word ostracize. Another method was using small pebbles to signify a vote, which were dropped into an urn and counted.

Centuries later, medieval Venice had a Great Council that elected officeholders. In their elections, they used gold and silver balls instead of pebbles, called ballotta (small ball). Later, ballotta expanded in meaning to include other items used in drawing lots or voting, such as scraps of linen and paper. The term emerged in English as ballot in the mid-16th century.^[2]

8 Filibuster

A legislator seeking to obstruct a bill’s passage may speak indefinitely to delay or prevent a final vote. Some read phonebooks or kitchen recipes or recite the Declaration of Independence. This is called filibustering. In the U.S. Senate, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina held the record for the longest filibuster; he spoke for 24 hours and 18 minutes against the Civil Rights Act of 1957 on August 28-29. While technically not a true filibuster—no bill passage was delayed—Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey broke that record on April 1, 2025, by holding up Senate business for 25 hours and 4 minutes.

The original filibuster referred to a military adventurer, filibustero in Spanish, which may have been derived from the French flibustier. In turn, this may have come from the English word “freebooter” or pirate. So, in a curious roundabout way, an originally English word was re-adopted into the language in the 1840s in Spanish guise. At that time, a filibuster was specifically “an American engaged in fomenting insurrections in Latin America in the mid-19th century.” The most famous of these was William Walker, a Tennessee native who actually made himself president of Nicaragua.

It didn’t take long for the word to be applied to politicians who engage in dilatory tactics to sabotage legislative deliberation. Filibustering became so annoying that in 1917, the Senate provided for a two-thirds majority vote on a measure to end debate, a procedure known as cloture. This was further reduced to three-fifths in 1975.^[3]

7 Cabinet

The group of ministers or secretaries closely advising the head of state derives its name, a cabinet, from the Italian cabinetto or the Latin capanna, which in the 16th century referred to a small room or closet. In English royal and noble households, this room—and the toilet—was called the privy. As the king would move his trusted advisors from a public room to these small rooms to discuss important matters in secrecy, these men were called the Privy Council.

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) was the first to use the term cabinet counsels in his Essays (1605), and quite disapprovingly as a foreign habit: “For which inconveniences, the doctrine of Italy, and practice of France, in some kings’ times, hath introduced cabinet counsels; a remedy worse than the disease.” Nevertheless, King Charles I was the first to formally convoke a Cabinet Council, and by the time of Charles II (r. 1660–1685) and Anne (r. 1702–1714), the meetings had become regular. Later, a cabinet evolved in meaning from a small room to a piece of furniture used for storage.^[4]

6 Gerrymandering

Redrawing the boundaries of an electoral district to get a political advantage is called gerrymandering, which originated in the early 19th century. Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry was a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, a two-term member of the House of Representatives, and VP under James Madison. In the state senatorial elections of 1812, Gerry’s Democratic-Republican party decided to outmaneuver the rival Federalist party, which currently held the five senatorial seats.

To do this, they redrew the boundaries of the state’s senate districts, which followed county lines, to incorporate the most Democratic-Republican voters. It was not a new ploy. Politicians had been doing it from the republic’s foundation, resulting in weird configurations on district maps, like those dubbed today the “Erie Lake Monster” in Ohio and the “Goofy Kicking Donald Duck” in Pennsylvania. In Massachusetts, the redrawn districts stretched in a long, thin strip from near Boston to the New Hampshire border, neatly cutting the traditionally Federalist Essex County in half. It headed east along the Merrimack River to the coast.

To be fair, Gerry found the redistribution disagreeable. But he went ahead and signed the bill anyway. It worked. Three Democratic-Republican senators were elected that year. At a Federalist dinner party in Boston in March 1812, illustrator Elkanah Teasdale showed his cartoon map of the new districts, where the geographical contortions appeared as a reptilian monster with claws and snake-like head. One guest commented that it looked like a salamander, to which poet Richard Alsop quipped, “No, a Gerry-mander.” The term stuck.^[5]

5 Lobbyist

The story goes that President Ulysses S. Grant would regularly sit in a comfortable leather armchair in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., enjoying a cigar and a glass of brandy. Those who knew of his habit would approach him there seeking favors, and Grant called these power brokers lobbyists.

This may be true, but Grant didn’t coin the term. The word was already in use before him, and one of its first appearances was in the August 16, 1842 issue of The New York Evening Post. The verb form was even earlier. Lobby comes from the Latin lobium, meaning gallery, and came into English in the 16th century. In that age, people were already in the habit of conducting business meetings in such galleries, generally those in legislative buildings. They were, therefore, called lobbyists, much like in the Grant story. As such, the myth that Grant originated the term must be laid to rest.^[6]

4 Dark Horse/Running Mate

A political candidate who wins an election unexpectedly, like Bill Clinton did with the Democratic nomination in 1992, is called a dark horse. The story was told in the 19th century about an American horse owner with a black stallion who would tell everyone that it was just an ordinary pack animal. He would then enter it in a race. Of course, it would win, much to the surprise of the other entrants. The owner raked in a sizeable amount of prize money with this gimmick.

Benjamin Disraeli, in his 1831 novel The Young Duke, was the first to use the phrase dark horse to refer to an unknown horse with unproven abilities and, therefore, difficult to place bets on: “A dark horse, which had never been thought of… rushed past the grand stand in sweeping triumph.” From this racing parlance, its use soon spread to other fields, first in academia and then in politics, in the figurative sense it has today.

Another political term we have taken from horse racing is running mate. One owner might enter two horses in a race, the slower one setting the pace for the star. This pacesetter was called the running mate, and the phrase had been employed for more than a century when it was used in its figurative sense by, of all people, the staid and solemn Woodrow Wilson. Needless to say, his introduction of Thomas Marshall as his “running mate” in the 1912 Democratic Convention brought the house down.^[7]

3 Left Wing/Right Wing

The great debate during the French Revolution was how much power King Louis XVI should have. This was one of the issues the National Assembly had to resolve as it sat down to draft a new constitution for France in the summer of 1789. Conservative and aristocratic Royalists thought the king should have absolute veto; the radicals insisted his power must be curtailed.

As the debate dragged on, members of both factions occupied seats opposite each other in the assembly hall — the anti-royalists to the presiding officer’s left, the conservatives to the right. Newspapers reporting the developments began referring to the two groups in shorthand, the “left” and the “right.” The distinction disappeared with the abolition of the monarchy and throughout the reign of Napoleon.

Still, during the Bourbon restoration, royalists and anti-royalists again took up their usual places on the left and right of the assembly hall. By the mid-19th century, left and right in reference to political ideology had been cemented in the lexicon of government, including nuances like center-left, center-right, extreme left, and extreme right.^[8]

2 Red State/Blue State

Red for Republicans, blue for Democrats. These colors have only recently been associated with both parties. In the election of 1976, it was actually the opposite — NBC’s electoral map showed states won by President Gerald Ford as blue and those by the Democratic contender Jimmy Carter as red. NBC was the first network to air a colored map, and the chosen colors seemed logical.

In the Civil War, Union soldiers under the Republican President Abraham Lincoln wore blue uniforms, while red was always associated with liberalism and radicalism. Blue is also traditionally associated with conservative parties in Europe.

Other TV networks also began to use colored maps, but there was no agreed-upon scheme to designate the two parties, and each network used its own colors, confusing viewers switching channels. During the Cold War, when red was symbolic of Communism, Dems’ colored maps would paint GOP states red. In contrast, the Republicans would do the opposite.

The lack of uniformity continued until the 2000 Gore-Bush election when Florida’s vote recount glued viewers to the TV screens. ABC and CBS were already using the Republican red and Democratic blue color scheme, and to avoid further confusing the voters, NBC decided to follow suit, and these colors have become standardized since then.^[9]

1 Red Tape

The irritation, anger, and frustration we all feel towards excessive bureaucracy were familiar to people as far back as ancient Egypt, where a sophisticated administration and tax collection were necessary to undertake grandiose projects like the Great Pyramid. Qin Dynasty China (221–206 BC) effectively invented bureaucracy in its modern sense to manage the vast, sprawling empire.

As the business of government grew in the medieval and early modern periods, so did record-keeping and the attendant paperwork. Managing piles upon piles of documents was a challenge. In the 16th century, Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, had important documents that required priority bound with red tape, string, or ribbon to make them more visible.

Other courts adopted this method of organizing bureaucratic clutter. Ironically, red tape—the method King Charles used to make government more efficient—now means the opposite: “excessive bureaucracy or adherence to rules and formalities, especially in public business.” It was first used in this sense in 1736.

In 1872, the worsening problem was addressed by Thomas Baker, barrister-at-law of London’s Inner Temple in his essay The Insidious Red Tape Form of Government in England. “The system has, in one sense, been very aptly described as the art of spoiling paper; for the tons of thick foolscap wasted by its votaries in the effort to kill time are incalculable,” Baker writes.

Ban red tape? Well, it once had been—sort of. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, the Stationery Office, tasked by the British treasury to buy bulk supplies for the Crown, abolished red tape—the literal kind. At this time, documents were actually bound by red cloth instead of tape. Since the red dye was manufactured in enemy territory, it was goodbye to red tape.^[10]

fact checked by
Darci Heikkinen