noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A form of political corruption in which an influential individual handpicks another, often less influential candidate, to attain leadership in order to exert authority or influence. This may be due to the unpopularity of one candidate, or to work around incumbency term limits. Nigeria, uncountable

Etymology

From godfather + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.