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Glite Dictionary
Anti-Masonic Party

Anti-Masonic Party

9.6
A former political party in the United States that opposed the Freemasons
  • noun
  • US
translation icon : Partido Antimasonico
  • The Anti-Masonic Party played a significant role in American political history by being the first third party in the United States.

Examples

  • So does this mean the Republicans are going to go past their current efforts to regress to their roots in the Know-Nothing Party by leapfrogging it to resurrect the Anti-Masonic Party?

    Blog text (8)

  • During its peak, the Anti-Masonic Party attracted many voters who feared secret societies' involvement in government.

  • The Anti-Masonic Party was established in the early 19th century to address concerns over Freemasonry's influence in politics.

Surface Forms

Anti-Masonic Party singular
Anti-Masonic Parties plural

Morphology

Anti-Masonic + party

The meaning is directly compositional: 'anti-' (against) + 'Masonic' (relating to Freemasonry) + 'party' (a political group) yields a political party opposed to Freemasonry. The 'anti‑X party' pattern is cross-linguistically common and follows regular morphological composition, so a learner who knows the constituent elements would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Anti-Masonic Party comes from a real political group in the 1820s whose members feared a secret group called the Freemasons. The name literally says they were Anti- ('against') the Masons, so the party was formed to oppose Freemasonry in public life.