Meaning of rotten borough | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A parliamentary borough that was represented in Parliament although the number of voters had diminished so greatly that they were largely controlled by the main landowner; such boroughs were abolished in the 19th century.
   UK, historical
2. A parliamentary constituency or electoral district in a similar situation.
   UK, broadly

Equivalents

Examples

“[…] Queen's Crawley was no longer so populous a place as it had been in Queen Bess's time—nay, was come down to that condition of borough which used to be denominated rotten–yet, as Sir Pitt Crawley would say with perfect justice in his elegant way, "Rotten! be hanged—it produces me a good fifteen hundred a year."”

CEFR level