constituency

English

Etymology

From constituent +‎ -ency.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kənˈstɪt͡ʃu.ənsi/, /kənˈstɪtju.ənsi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

constituency (plural constituencies)

1. (politics) A district represented by one or more elected officials.

   Synonyms: (Australia) division, electoral district, (New Zealand) electorate, precinct, (Canada) riding

   John was elected to parliament from the Bedford constituency.

   • 2011 December 14, Angelique Chrisafis, “Rachida Dati accuses French PM of sexism and elitism”, in Guardian‎:

     The row started over who will run for parliament in a wealthy rightwing constituency on the left bank in Paris, a safe seat for Sarkozy's ruling UMP. Dati is already a local mayor in the neighbourhood, a job felt to have been handed to her on a plate when she was a Sarkozy favourite. She has since fallen from grace, and when she left government she took a European parliament seat, considered a consolation prize.

   • 2023 May 31, “Network News: Micro-management prompted Gibb to quit ScotRail”, in RAIL, number 984, page 25:

     This follows the confirmation that Gilruth personally ordered the cancellation of engineering works in Fife last year, which is thought to have been the final straw for Gibb […] . Because her Fife constituency was materially affected by the cancellation, Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross, who raised Gibb's departure at First Minister's Questions on May 18, described the incident as a "clear-cut sackable offence".

2. (collective) The voters within such a district.

   Synonym: electorate

3. (collective) The residents of such a district.
4. (collective) The voters of a candidate.
5. An interest group or fan base.

Hyponyms

• functional constituency (Hong Kong, Macau)
• group representation constituency (Singapore)

Derived terms

• core constituency
• nonconstituency
• subconstituency

 

Related terms

• constituent
• constitute
• constitution
• constitutional
• constitutive

 

Translations

district represented by one or more elected officials

Belarusian: вы́барчая акру́га f (výbarčaja akrúha) Burmese: မဲဆန္ဒနယ် (my) (mai:hcanda.nai) Catalan: circumscripció (ca) f Chinese: Mandarin: 選區／选区 (zh) (xuǎnqū) Danish: valgkreds c Dutch: kiesdistrict (nl) n Finnish: vaalipiiri (fi) French: circonscription électorale f, circonscription (fr) f Galician: circunscrición (gl) f Georgian: საარჩევნო ოლქი (saarčevno olki) German: Wahlkreis (de) m Greek: εκλογική περιφέρεια f (eklogikí periféreia) Hindi: निर्वाचन क्षेत्र m (nirvācan kṣetra), चुनाव क्षेत्र m (cunāv kṣetra) Hungarian: választókerület (hu) Icelandic: kjördæmi n Indonesian: daerah pemilihan (id) Italian: circoscrizione (it) f Japanese: 選挙区 (ja) (せんきょく, senkyoku) Korean: 선거구(選擧區) (ko) (seon'geogu) Norwegian: Bokmål: valgkrets m, valgdistrikt n Polish: okręg wyborczy m Portuguese: círculo eleitoral m, distrito eleitoral m Romanian: circumscripție electorală f Russian: избира́тельный о́круг (ru) m (izbirátelʹnyj ókrug) Spanish: circunscripción (es) Swedish: valkrets (sv) c Ukrainian: вибо́рчий о́круг m (vybórčyj ókruh) Urdu: حَلْقَہ m (halqa)

voters within such a district — see electorate

Further reading

• constituency on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Constituency in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)