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political party

political party

204 2.7
A group of people with the same political ideas who try to win elections
  • noun
  • /pəˈlɪtɪkəl ˈpɑrti/
translation icon : partido político
  • She joined a political party that focuses on environmental issues.
  • major political parties
  • political parties contest elections
  • opposition political parties

Did you mean when you said that political parties or did you mean the government?

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Examples

  • I'm pleased to announce that the two governments and the political parties of Northern Ireland have reached agreement.

  • As a citizen, I would not like to see any political party outlawed on the basis of its ideology.

  • This is the actual one of the two major political parties in the state.

  • And he said, I will do that only as long as all the political parties remain united.

  • This is the period at which American political parties were starting to become weaker.

  • In spite of media attention, popular interest in political parties and candidates remains low.

    Academic text (1990)
  • Local government elections on a political party basis are scheduled for December 1990.

    Academic text (1990)
  • And all political parties in Sweden were influenced by this.

  • Traditionally, American political parties have been pretty big tents.

  • Ever since the elections of 1996, the two largest political parties have been on a warpath against each other.

    Academic text (1999)

Synonyms

party
vspolitical party
3.2

An organized group of people with the same political aims who try to win power

is the longer descriptive name rather than the short common label

Antonyms

fragmentation
  • Specialized
9 6.8

When a group or society breaks into smaller parts and loses shared values

4 6.4

A situation when people or groups do not agree

How Influential

dominant
1 4.1
political party
204 2.7

Surface Forms

Morphology

political + party

The meaning is directly compositional: 'political' (relating to politics) modifies 'party' (a group), yielding a group organized around political aims. This adjective+noun combination follows a common and cross-linguistically transparent pattern, and the adjective disambiguates the social-gathering sense of 'party', so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Political party comes from an older use of party meaning a 'side' or 'group' in an argument. Imagine people on the same 'side' joining to push the same ideas and 'win elections', so a political party is a group that tries to gain power and change government rules.