MUGWUMP • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Mugwump

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noun

mugwump n.

A bolter from the Republican party in the national election of 1884; an Independent. (Political Cant, U.S.)

A person who is undecided about an issue, especially a political one; a person who takes a neutral stance on an issue; a fence-sitter.

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Etymology of 'Mugwump'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Mugwump" Quotes from Famous Books

... because of that subterfuge of Mugwump? Alas for that conscientiousness of which she had once been proud! Was it the measure of her degradation she read on Rosalie's startled face—Rosalie's face of stricken incredulity and amaze? But no; Rosalie's transfixed gaze was not on Emily Louise—it passed ...

— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... assumption that it will improve matters. "I don't have any disk space left." "Well, why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?" 4. Under a GUI, the act of dragging something out of a window (onto the screen). "Next, defenestrate the MugWump icon." 5. [proposed] The requirement to support a command-line interface. "It has to run on a VT100." ...

— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0

... forty-three years old he was well versed in the art of practical politics. Coming upon the political scene in the early eighties, he had associated himself with the reformers in the Republican party; but he was no Mugwump. From the first he vehemently preached the doctrine of party loyalty; if beaten in the convention, he voted the straight ticket in the election. For twenty years he adhered to this rule and during a considerable portion of that period he held office as a spokesman ...

— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... the goods and bought them low, so that it was all right. But Whyland turned me over to Frank Thurber. Frank is the politician of the concern; the greenback, anti-monopoly, mugwump man! He beamed on me as if he was Venus rising out of the sea; patted me on the back; said I would own all of Michigan in a few years, and he was coming out to get some points from us wide-awake Westerners; then filled my pockets with his anti-monopoly speeches and papers, led ...

— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher

... caste, and law by appeals to morality or constitutional agitation for Liberal reforms, made common cause with the starving wage-working class, and resorted to armed rebellion, which reached Dresden in 1849. Had Wagner been the mere musical epicure and political mugwump that the term "artist" seems to suggest to so many critics and amateurs—that is, a creature in their own lazy likeness—he need have taken no more part in the political struggles of his day than Bishop took in the English Reform agitation of 1832, or Sterndale Bennett in the Chartist or Free ...

— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw