the body politic

the body politic

The inhabitants of a nation taken together as a political entity. How do you think the body politic will vote in this election?
See also: body, politic
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

body politic

the people of a country or state considered as a political unit. The body politic was unable to select between the candidates.
See also: body, politic
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • body politic
  • politic
  • arrive (some place) in a body
  • reach (some place) in a body
  • body check
  • pick (something) clean
  • pick something clean
  • in a body
  • lie in state
  • worm food
References in classic literature
We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or one-third its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to advance the body politic.
But throughout creation Nature has confined the vital principle within a narrow space, in order to concentrate its power; and so it is with the body politic. I will illustrate this thought of mine by examples.
Whosoever has observed that sedate and clerical bird, the rook, may perhaps have noticed that when he wings his way homeward towards nightfall, in a sedate and clerical company, two rooks will suddenly detach themselves from the rest, will retrace their flight for some distance, and will there poise and linger; conveying to mere men the fancy that it is of some occult importance to the body politic, that this artful couple should pretend to have renounced connection with it.
He covers the communicative viewpoint: photography, frontality, and multiplicity during the 1800s; the beholder in motion: kinetic viewership; and the body physical, the body politic: incorporated viewership during the 1960s.
Fineza, in her order, said the condonation doctrine only applied to a 'public officer who is elected to a different position provided that it is shown that the body politic (voters) electing the person to another office is the same.'
IANS Panaji The Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi was different from the"undeclared emergency"of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is a slow poison injected into the body politic of India, former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha said on Wednesday.
The former premier noted in his reply that the matter one of "far-reaching consequences relating to the body politic of the country" - has been taken up by the court on the "motion of many other aggrieved parties".
The growing scholarship on the writer best known for the early lesbian novel Desert of the Heart (1964) continues with the release of correspondence between Jane Rule, who died in 2007, and Rick Bebout, who was editor for The Body Politic and passed away in 2009.
The argument centers on the crucial role that the spread of syphilis played in a literal and figurative sense with respect to the critique of moral and corporal decay as the disease threatened individual bodies and the body politic, whose natural equilibrium needed to be remedied and restored.
Adams provides a convincing template for understanding the emergence of such literary classics as The City of Ladies, along with the host of other writings that marked the evolution of Christine's literary career from, initially, a skilled poet to a thoughtful theorist on the body politic and the roles of both women and men (particularly those of the political elite) within society.
And yet, as argued further by Herzogenrath, the traditional understanding of the metaphor of the Body Politic "has lost its currency ...
FARAGE'S current ability to tickle the erogenous zones of large sections of the body politic is undisputed.
He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown m the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.
Summary: TEHRAN (FNA)- A prominent Israeli Analyst dismissed speculations that Bashar al-Assad's government has reached its terminal phase, and stressed that the Syrian army is still fighting like a united force and the main corps of the body politic is still loyal to Assad and is aligned behind him.
He also added that it is necessary to find more effective means of interaction between the body politic and the authorities.