noun
definition
A politician.
verb
definition
To engage in political activity; politick.
adjective
definition
Of or relating to polity, or civil government; political.
example
the body politic
definition
(of things) Relating to, or promoting, a policy, especially a national policy; well-devised; adapted to its end, whether right or wrong.
example
a politic treaty
definition
Sagacious in promoting a policy; ingenious in devising and advancing a system of management; devoted to a scheme or system rather than to a principle; hence, in a good sense, wise; prudent; sagacious
definition
Shrewd, prudent and expedient.
definition
Discreet and diplomatic.
definition
Artful, crafty or cunning.
Examples of politic in a Sentence
Nasir Khan proved an active, politic and warlike prince.
In this and in other matters Richard found it politic to conciliate him.
Under Hofmeyr's politic control all declarations inconsistent with allegiance to the British Crown were omitted from the Bond's constitution.
He regulated affairs in Antioch, and tried to strengthen the north of Palestine generally against the arm of Zengi's successor, Nureddin, by renewing the old and politic alliance with Damascus interrupted since 1147, and by ceding Tellbashir, the one remnant of the county of Edessa, to Manuel of Constantinople.
The war began in Massachusetts, troops from New England flocking to the neighbourhood of Boston almost spontaneously; but the resistance, if it was to be effective, must have the support of the colonies to the southward, and the Virginia colonel who was serving on all the military committees of Congress, and whose experience in the Braddock campaign had made his name favourably known in England, was the obvious as well as the politic choice.
Admiral Montt took the view that it was politic and just to let bygones be bygones, and he acted conscientiously by this principle in all administrative measures in connexion with the supporters of the late President Balmaceda.
The marriage of his son to the granddaughter of Aurangzeb and the formal restoration of the crown to the dethroned emperor were doubtless politic, but the descendant of Babar could not easily forget how humiliating a chapter in history would remain to be written against him.
The one politic act of Mortimers administration, the conclusion of a permanent peace with Scotland by acknowledging Bruce as king (1328), was not one which made him more popular.
Thinking that it would be politic to claim no more, Necker persuaded the king to intimate that he was satisfied with Lafayette's proposal.
It is rather due to an overpowering sense of the value of organization - a sense that liberty can never be dissevered from order, that a vital interconnexion between all the parts of the body politic is the source of all good, so that while he can find nothing but brute weight in an organized public, he can compare the royal person in his ideal form of constitutional monarchy to the dot upon the letter i.
It may be politic or expedient to inflict pain upon a criminal in order either to effect an alteration in his character or to deter him or others from future performance of acts of a certain character.
The wonderful achievements of the Irish monks did not affect the body politic as a whole,.
The unit of local government in South Carolina is the county, which, the state constitution provides, " shall be a body politic and corporate."
Counties are divided into townships and under the constitution each " shall constitute a body politic and corporate," but in 1910 there were no separate township govern-' ments, the existing division of counties into townships being for the purpose of convenience in adjusting taxes.
But Urban was too politic to embroil himself with the king of England, and Anselm found that he could obtain no substantial result.
This political victory of the aristocracy was merely the consummation of a slow subterranean revolution which by innumerable reiterated blows had sapped the structure of the body politic, and was about to transfer the people of Gaul from the Roman monarchical and administrative government to the sway of the feudal system.
The amnesty of Alais, prudent and moderate in religious matters, gave back to the Protestants their common rights within the body politic. Unfortunately what was an end for Richelieu was but a first step for the Catholic party.
The usurping successor of Hakam found it a politic step to request the most notable doctors of the sacred law to examine the royal library; and every book treating of philosophy, astronomy and other forbidden topics was condemned to the flames.
Clement yielded at once, though the whole college of cardinals had supported his policy; and Henry, who did not learn the facts till several years afterwards, testified lively gratitude for the timely and politic intervention.
They are objects with no communicated sense of their own materiality, presence, history or politic.
Indeed, it is drawing its strength from the long list of health panics that have infected the body politic in recent years.
Tribal patriotism is a powerful vaccine that immunizes the body politic against self-criticism.
It seemed politic to check the Third and Second Divisions rather than to further complicate the situation with our presence.
In April 1906 an eruption of Mount Etna caused the destruction of several villages and much loss of life and damage to property; in appointinga committee to distribute the relief funds the premier refused to include any of the deputies of the devastated districts among its members, and when asked by them for the reason of this omission, he replied, with a frankness more characteristic of the man than politic, that he knew they would prove more solicitous in the distribution of relief for their own electors than for the real sufferers.
Accordingly, in the session of 1562-1563, Cecil forced upon an unwilling parliament "a politic ordinance on fish eating," by which the eating of flesh on fast days was made punishable by a fine of three pounds or three months' imprisonment, one meat dish being allowed on Wednesdays on condition that three fish dishes were present on the table.
On Pitt's elevation to the premiership, Conway supported Fox in opposition; but after the dissolution of parliament in 1784 he retired from politic a l life.
The sophist Favorinus was more politic; when reproached for yielding too readily to the emperor in some grammatical discussion, he replied that it was unwise to contradict the master of thirty legions.
Joseph was an idealist and a doctrinaire, whose dream was to build up his ideal body politic; the first step toward which was to be the amalgamation of all his dominions into a common state under an absolute sovereign (see Austria-Hungary; and Joseph Ii., Emperor).
But the most striking memorial of his greatness was the union of Lublin, which finally made of Poland and Lithuania one body politic, and put an end to the jealousies and discords of centuries (see Poland, History).
In church matters, as in philosophy, the two were opposed,- Pletho maintaining strongly the principles of the Greek Church, and being unwilling to accept union through compromise, while Georgios, more politic and cautious, pressed the necessity for union and was instrumental in drawing up a form which from its vagueness and ambiguity might be accepted by both parties.
He sacrificed everything to it; but he ennobled it by the genius and audacity of his conceptions, by the energetic tension of all the muscles of the body politic.
In the same city in which the administrative functions of the body politic are centralized there stifi exists the court of the spiritual potentate which in 1879 consisted of 1821 persons.
Thomas Howard, a politic mind, loyal to the powers that be, was released from the Tower of London in 1489, his earldom of Surrey and his Garter restored.
Stolypin indeed defended the coup d'etat in the Duma on the ground that the autocrat had merely altered what the autocrat had originally granted; but, while laying stress on the necessity for restoring order in the body politic, he announced a long programme of reforms, including agrarian measures, reform of local government and its extension in the frontier provinces, and state insurance of workmen.
Pursuing the foes, he inflicted upon them a signal chastisement and took a great booty, part of which he spent in politic gifts to the leading men of the towns in the south country.'
He would submit all minor questions to the reason of the individual member, but he set certain limits to toleration, excluding "whatsoever is against the foundation of faith, or contrary to good life and the laws of obedience, or destructive to human society, and the public and just interests of bodies politic."
Its effect was to remove from Athens for a period of ten years any person who threatened the harmony and tranquillity of the body politic. A similar device existed at various times in Argos, Miletus, Syracuse and Megara, but in these cities it appears to have been introduced under Athenian influence.
They agreed that the Scriptures should be their guide in civil affairs, and that only approved church members should be admitted to the body politic; twelve men were appointed to choose seven men ("seven pillars") who should found the church and admit to its original membership such planters as they thought properly qualified.
But if the motive of his patronage had been merely politic it never could have inspired the affection which it did in its recipients.
The second part of the act provides that if any person or persons, bodies politic and corporate, for any sum of money, reward, gift, profit or benefit, directly or indirectly, or for or by reason of any promise, agreement, grant, bond, covenant or other assurances.
But the English leaders were treated with politic clemency, and the Danish leader, Jarl Osbiorn, was bribed to withdraw his fleet.
Joseph was an idealist and a doctrinaire, whose dream was to build up his ideal body politic; the first step toward which was to be the amalgamation of all his dominions into a common state under an absolute sovereign.
Stanhope, whose politic instinct obliged him to worship the rising rather than the setting sun, remained faithful to the prince, though he was too cautious to break entirely with the king's party.
He was intercepted at Faversham and brought back, but the politic prince of Orange allowed him to escape a second time (December 23, 1688).
The early German governments whose chief functions, military, judicial, financial, legislative, were carried on by the freemen of the nation because they were members of the body politic, and were performed as duties owed to the community for its defence and sustenance, no longer existed.
The capture of Mecca (630) was not only an evidence of his growing power, which induced Arabs throughout the peninsula to join him, but gave him a valuable centre of pilgrimage, in which he was able by a politic adoption of some of the heathen Arabian ceremonies into his own rites to win men over the more easily to his own cause.
His religious exercises and temperate habits gave him, in popular estimation, a great superiority over his brothers, but he was too politic to put forward his claims openly.
As for John of Gaunt himself, it can hardly be said that this sort of politic wisdom is very conspicuous in him.
In 1631 the general court of the Massachusetts colony resolved, " that no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same."
It meant the excision of an alien element which fed like a cancer on the body politic; it meant the recovery, at comparatively little cost, of the command of the principal rivers of Poland, the Vistula and the Niemen; it meant the obtaining of a seaboard with the corollaries of sea-power and world-wide commerce.