Rino

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Acronym of Republican in name only, typically used by conservative members of the U.S. Republican Party to describe liberal Republicans or Republicans seen as liberals. US, abbreviation, acronym, alt-of, derogatory

    "Irritated that Riordan’s key aides are Democrats, some Republican party activists sported RINO (Republican In Name Only) buttons at a Riordan speech (Los Angeles Times, 16 May 1994)."

  2. 2
    Alternative form of RINO. alt-of, alternative

Synonyms

All synonyms
republican in name only

Example

More examples

"Irritated that Riordan’s key aides are Democrats, some Republican party activists sported RINO (Republican In Name Only) buttons at a Riordan speech (Los Angeles Times, 16 May 1994)."

Etymology

Attested from December 1992.

Related phrases

log cabin republicanrockefeller republican

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