on the hustings

Campaigning for office. The noun hustings comes from the Old Norse husthing, for house assembly, which meant a council held by a king or other leader that included his immediate followers (rather than a large assembly of the people). In England husting became a court of law, specifically the highest court of the City of London. Eventually it was transferred, in the plural, to the platform where the city officials sat, and later still to the platform from which candidates for Parliament were nominated. From this last sense came its current meaning of the candidates’ platform for campaign speeches, or simply campaigning. A synonymous phrase with a far simpler history is on the stump. An Americanism dating from the 1700s, it alludes to a tree stump used as a platform by a frontiersman making a speech.

See also: hustings, on

The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer

See also:

beater
angle
angling
high
high, wide, and handsome
wear (one's) apron high
fire and brimstone
bummer

References in classic literature

But after a very few sentences of figurative eloquence, the pink-faced gentleman got from denouncing those who interrupted him in the mob, to exchanging defiances with the gentlemen on the hustings; whereupon arose an uproar which reduced him to the necessity of expressing his feelings by serious pantomime, which he did, and then left the stage to his seconder, who delivered a written speech of half an hour's length, and wouldn't be stopped, because he had sent it all to the Eatanswill GAZETTE, and the Eatanswill GAZETTE had already printed it, every word.

The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club

词组	on the hustings
释义	on the hustings on the hustings Campaigning for office. The noun hustings comes from the Old Norse husthing, for house assembly, which meant a council held by a king or other leader that included his immediate followers (rather than a large assembly of the people). In England husting became a court of law, specifically the highest court of the City of London. Eventually it was transferred, in the plural, to the platform where the city officials sat, and later still to the platform from which candidates for Parliament were nominated. From this last sense came its current meaning of the candidates’ platform for campaign speeches, or simply campaigning. A synonymous phrase with a far simpler history is on the stump. An Americanism dating from the 1700s, it alludes to a tree stump used as a platform by a frontiersman making a speech. See also: hustings, on The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer See also: beater angle angling high high, wide, and handsome wear (one's) apron high fire and brimstone bummer References in classic literature But after a very few sentences of figurative eloquence, the pink-faced gentleman got from denouncing those who interrupted him in the mob, to exchanging defiances with the gentlemen on the hustings; whereupon arose an uproar which reduced him to the necessity of expressing his feelings by serious pantomime, which he did, and then left the stage to his seconder, who delivered a written speech of half an hour's length, and wouldn't be stopped, because he had sent it all to the Eatanswill GAZETTE, and the Eatanswill GAZETTE had already printed it, every word. The Posthumous Papers Of The Pickwick Club
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