Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The body of voters or the residents of a district represented by an elected legislator or official.
  • noun The district so represented.
  • noun A group of supporters or patrons.
  • noun A group served by an organization or institution; a clientele.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A body of constituents or principals, especially a body of persons voting for an elective officer, particularly for a municipal, officer or a member of a legislative body; in a more general sense, the whole body of residents of the district or locality represented by such an officer or legislator.
  • noun Hence Any body of persons who may be conceived to have a common representative; those to whom one is in any way accountable; clientele: as, the constituency of a newspaper (that is, its readers); the constituency of a hotel (its guests or customers).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A body of constituents, as the body of citizens or voters in a representative district.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A district represented by one or more elected officials.
  • noun The voters within such a district.
  • noun An interest group or fan base.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the body of voters who elect a representative for their area

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • I'm glad he clearly understands who his constituency is here.

    Thank heaven (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • The real vote he will have to explain to his constituency is the vote of confidence for the Kenyan/Indonesian in the WH. rob, austin tx

    Gates defends military's review of DADT 2010

  • How sad that politicians can only think about themselves as if being the representative of a constituency is their paycheck versus the job they signed on to ... where, btw, the state voted 61% to select Obama as the Democratic nominee.

    Mississippi Democrat distances himself from Obama 2008

  • Again, in the interests of SNP Tactical Voting, putting your x for Ross Finnie in this constituency is a good plan.

    You heard it here first Jeff 2007

  • Our poster display in the west of the constituency is astounding.

    Campaigning Today 2005

  • Our poster display in the west of the constituency is astounding.

    Archive 2005-04-01 2005

  • I think -- well, let's say, we will have what we call a constituency for Africa that will take these issues one at a time and deal with them appropriately; and help both the American public, the Congress, the business community to understand what we feel to be America's interests.

    Young Lucas And Clough Briefing On Africa Conference ITY National Archives 1994

  • A further constituency is our co-regulators, both nationally and internationally and the rapidly increasing need for improved investigative and enforcement cooperation as world-wide trading escalates.

    The View From the Ontario Securities Commission 1991

  • The right you have to vote in such a constituency is a positive right; it is given you by a positive law and it might be changed.

    Foundations for Peace 1952

  • _ Eh! but he is subjected to a pretty severe competitive examination of his own, by what they call a constituency, who just put him to the test in the art of conjuring, to see if he can shift money from his own pocket into theirs, without any inconvenient third party being aware of the transfer.

    Gryll Grange Thomas Love Peacock 1825

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