Court-ridden
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Dominated or overly influenced by the (royal) court.
"I wonder shall History ever pull off her periwig and cease to be court-ridden? Shall we see something of France and England besides Versailles and Windsor?"
- 2 Dominated or overly influenced by the judiciary.
"So a Canadian who did not happen to know better might exclaim, Why, what’s the use of a Senate and House of Representatives or House of Assembly, when their hands are tied by the letter which killeth, when they cannot even “boss” a court? What kind of a country is it where no matter how offensive and discreditable a government may be, you cannot get rid of it till a time fixed beyond control? What a paper-governed, court-ridden country!"
Example
More examples"I wonder shall History ever pull off her periwig and cease to be court-ridden? Shall we see something of France and England besides Versailles and Windsor?"
Etymology
From court + ridden.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.