carpetbagger
10
9.9
- noun
- /ˈkɑːrpɪtˌbæɡər/
- Offensive
- Some voters labeled him a carpetbagger for moving to the area just to run for office.
Loading YouTube…
Watch on YouTubeSoutherners wrote about them and they wrote a story that was about Northern carpetbaggers and corrupt African Americans.
- Southerners wrote about them and they wrote a story that was about Northern carpetbaggers and corrupt African Americans.
Examples
-
Celebrities who buy ranches are portrayed in the media either as spoiled, arrogant carpetbaggers or as fonts of a new and superior conservation ethic.
Academic text (2001) -
State governments were dominated by the hated Republican coalition of carpetbaggers, scalawags, and blacks.
Academic text (2017) -
I'm the rich Connecticut carpetbagger.
-
Voters are free to consider carpetbagger status in their decision in the voting booth, and that's how it should be.
Blog text (24) -
The critics wrote us off as carpetbaggers, which was true.
-
There's a lot of carpetbaggers around buying up towns these days.
-
As a self-acknowledged carpetbagger from the North, haven't we been too hard on Nelson?
Blog text (11) -
But Anderson insists he is not a "carpetbagger" landing in Elroy to exploit the community for a quick buck.
Blog text (32) -
Few carpetbaggers fit the nefarious stereotype of the genre, and Ames fit it least of all.
-
I tell Tourgée's story in this much detail because it is, in many ways, the archetypal carpetbagger tale.
Academic text (2017)
Synonyms
A person who tries to get a job or office by using favors rather than hard work
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Carpetbagger comes from the time after the American Civil War, when some people from the North moved South carrying cheap carpet bags, literally 'bags made from carpet', and were seen as outsiders looking for quick profit. So today a carpetbagger is someone who moves to a place mainly to 'take advantage', not because they belong there.