#Definition of lame duck in government free#

The lame ducks were once out-and-out friends of ‘the cause,’” Bungway wrote in 1869. We have lame ducks in our temperance associations, and I will briefly classify some of the men and women who do not and who will not keep up with our progressive organization.

“In Wall Street, New York, we have a class of men known as ‘lame ducks': they have met with financial disasters, and can not keep pace with their more successful competitors. Bungay, for example, co-opted the phrase to call out early temperance supporters who had lost faith in the movement. Before long, the term had bled into other spheres of influence. Hill, Richard Harraden, Wikimedia Commons // Public Domainīritish citizens continued to utter “lame duck” when discussing the stock exchange throughout the 19th century, at which point it started to gain traction among U.S. Thomas Rowlandson, Augustus Charles Pugin, John Bluck, Joseph Constantine Stadler, Thomas Sutherland, J. Ten years later, playwright David Garrick mentioned the phrase in his prologue for Samuel Foote’s play The Maid of Bath: “Change-Alley bankrupts waddle out lame ducks!”Īn illustration of the London Stock Exchange in 1810. Walpole was alluding to the London Stock Exchange, where lame duck described an ill-fated investor who defaulted on their loans. “Do you know what a Bull, and a Bear, and a Lame Duck are?” he asked. In fact, the phrase didn’t even originate in politics.Īccording to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest known reference to the phrase is from a letter written by British nobleman Horace Walpole in 1761.

But while the term lame duck is now often used to refer to any outgoing politician in general-regardless of whether or not they’re figuratively limping through the end of their term-it wasn’t always that way.

#Definition of lame duck in government free#

Because they no longer have to worry about keeping their constituents happy enough to get reelected, they’re free to make decisions that might not be popular with the people they govern. It’s not exactly true that lame-duck politicians can’t get anything done during that period. In other words: Their capabilities are limited and their days are numbered. With diminished influence and little time to enact new policies, they’re often referred to as lame ducks. presidents and members of Congress elected in November don’t actually take office until the following January, this creates an awkward gap for their predecessors.