Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An advocate of the spoils system; a politician who seeks personal profit at the public cost from the success of his party; one who maintains that party service should be rewarded with public office; one who is opposed to the administration of the civil service on the basis of merit. See spoils system, under spoil, n.

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

  • noun One who serves a cause or a party for a share of the spoils; in United States politics, one who makes or recognizes a demand for public office on the ground of partisan service; also, one who sanctions such a policy in appointments to the public service.

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

  • noun US A politician who serves only for a share of the spoils.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From spoils +‎ man.

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Examples

  • To the astonishment of almost everyone, when Chester Arthur—the quintessential spoilsman—finally took the dead Garfield's place, he discovered that he had principles after all, turned against the system and pushed through the country's first Civil Service Act.

    Presidential Malpractice Fergus M. Bordewich 2011

  • If mental hospitals “can be provided with adequate funds and can be kept free from the slimy hands of spoilsman politics,” observed Overholser, “the psychiatrists of this country may be trusted to raise the standards of the mental hospitals even higher than they are at present.”

    The Mad Among Us Gerald N. Grob 1994

  • If mental hospitals “can be provided with adequate funds and can be kept free from the slimy hands of spoilsman politics,” observed Overholser, “the psychiatrists of this country may be trusted to raise the standards of the mental hospitals even higher than they are at present.”

    The Mad Among Us Gerald N. Grob 1994

  • But he was certain to be a partisan, a spoilsman, a tool of Tammany Hall and its corrupt boss.

    Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York A Series of Stories and Sketches Portraying Many Singular Phases of Metropolitan Life Lemuel Ely Quigg

  • Senator Orville H. Platt, of Connecticut; Senator Cockrell, of Missouri; Congressman (afterwards President) McKinley, of Ohio, and Congressman Dargan, of South Carolina -- who abhorred the business of the spoilsman, who efficiently and resolutely championed the reform at every turn, and without whom the whole reform would certainly have failed.

    An Autobiography Roosevelt, Theodore 1913

  • The Administration of Chester A. Arthur proved that the President had never been so discreditable a spoilsman as the reformers had believed, or else that he had changed his spots.

    The New Nation William E. [Editor] Dodd 1912

  • The decision of Arthur to take counsel from the Stalwarts aroused fears among others of the party that his would be the administration of a spoilsman.

    The New Nation William E. [Editor] Dodd 1912

  • When he became engaged his immediate thought was to find work, and one of his friends secured a position for him in the Boston customhouse, where he weighed coal until he was replaced by a party spoilsman.

    Outlines of English and American Literature : an Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived William Joseph Long 1909

  • Another friend obtained for him political appointment as surveyor of the Salem customhouse; again he was replaced by a spoilsman, and again he complained bitterly.

    Outlines of English and American Literature : an Introduction to the Chief Writers of England and America, to the Books They Wrote, and to the Times in Which They Lived William Joseph Long 1909

  • Bassett's name had been linked to that of Miles, the erring treasurer, in the "Advertiser's" headlines; and its leading editorial had pointed to the defalcation as the sort of thing that inevitably follows the domination of a party by a spoilsman and corruptionist like the senator from Fraser.

    A Hoosier Chronicle Meredith Nicholson 1906

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