Fence-mending
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Social assistance given to a community in order to retain popularity with the electorate. uncountable
"In summary, the recognition of the mandate of a group by government is useful not only to the group's leaders but to government as well. The existence and operations of organized groups introduce an element of stability into the political process; […] they enable government to carry on a continuous process of “fence mending” by continually drawing attention to the fences which require mending; […]"
- 2 Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see fence, mend. uncountable
Example
More examples"In summary, the recognition of the mandate of a group by government is useful not only to the group's leaders but to government as well. The existence and operations of organized groups introduce an element of stability into the political process; […] they enable government to carry on a continuous process of “fence mending” by continually drawing attention to the fences which require mending; […]"
More for "fence-mending"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.