eatanswill means the area where a disorderly, argumentative and riotous election takes place. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 100 out of 100.
Why this word is great
EATANSWILL — [Noun] A fictitious place, especially a borough, characterized by or serving as the scene of a riotous, corrupt, and drunken parliamentary election. Coined by Charles Dickens as the name of a borough in *The Pickwick Papers*, derived from the imperative phrase 'eat and swill', with 'swill' meaning to drink greedily. Unlike a "constituency" (a sober administrative district) or a "fracas" (a fleeting, noisy scuffle), Eatanswill is the entire, sustained theater of democratic farce made manifest. It is the hustings splattered with rotten eggs, the public house vibrating with bribed voters roaring competing anthems, and the greasy smear of pork-pie grease on a ballot paper—a single word that contains the whole cynical machinery of democracy as a glorious, grubby, and deeply human feast of folly.
noun
- The area where a disorderly, argumentative and riotous election takes place.