ROTTEN BOROUGH • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Rotten borough

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/rˈɑtən bˈərˌoʊ/ Listen

noun

Borough n.

In England, an incorporated town that is not a city; also, a town that sends members to parliament; in Scotland, a body corporate, consisting of the inhabitants of a certain district, erected by the sovereign, with a certain jurisdiction; in America, an incorporated town or village, as in Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

The collective body of citizens or inhabitants of a borough; as, the borough voted to lay a tax.

Close borough, or Pocket borough, a borough having the right of sending a member to Parliament, whose nomination is in the hands of a single person.

Rotten borough, a name given to any borough which, at the time of the passage of the Reform Bill of 1832, contained but few voters, yet retained the privilege of sending a member to Parliament.

adjective

Rotten adj. Having rotted; putrid; decayed; as, a rotten apple; rotten meat. Hence:

(a)

Offensive to the smell; fetid; disgusting. "You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate As reek of the rotten fens."

(b)

Not firm or trusty; unsound; defective; treacherous; unsafe; as, a rotten plank, bone, stone. "The deepness of the rotten way."

Rotten borough. See under Borough.

Rotten stone (Min.), a soft stone, called also Tripoli (from the country from which it was formerly brought), used in all sorts of finer grinding and polishing in the arts, and for cleaning metallic substances. The name is also given to other friable siliceous stones applied to like uses.

Synonyms: Putrefied; decayed; carious; defective; unsound; corrupt; deceitful; treacherous.

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Etymology of 'Rotten borough'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rotten borough" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Test valley for more than a mile with its beautiful woods and glades. Its eastern boundary is close to Whitchurch, seven miles from Andover. Whitchurch was another famous posting centre and, like Andover, a rotten borough. Here an important cross-country route from Oxford to Winchester tapped the Exeter road and here the modern ways of the Great Western and South Western cross each other at right angles. At the famous "White Hart" Newman wrote the opening part of the ...

— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes