bork
Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary
Contents
[edit] English
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Etymology 1
[edit] Verb
Infinitive
to bork
Third person singular
borks
Simple past
borked
Past participle
borked
Present participle
borking
to bork (third-person singular simple present borks, present participle borking, simple past and past participle borked)
[edit] Etymology 2
From the 1987 United States Supreme Court nomination of Robert Bork.[1]
[edit] Verb
Infinitive
to bork
Third person singular
borks
Simple past
borked
Past participle
borked
Present participle
borking
to bork (third-person singular simple present borks, present participle borking, simple past and past participle borked)
- After an eight-year hiatus, these groups are back on the scene, ready to implement an apparent vicious strategy of Borking any judicial nominee who happens to disagree with their view of how the world should be.
- Forcing their adversaries to bork nominees may, they may think, lead voters in the middle to think less well of liberals, enhancing the distaste for Washington politics that has helped conservatives gain political power.
- Above all it discusses the best tactics to defeat a borking. Having been in the Reagan White House when Robert Bork was borked, I knew something about the subject, which was a huge help when the same borking guns were turned on my friend Judge Smith years later.
William Safire of The New York Times attributes "possibly" the first use of 'Bork' as a verb to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution of August 20th, 1987. Safire defines "to bork" by reference "to the way Democrats savaged Ronald Reagan's nominee, the Appeals Court judge Robert H. Bork, the year before." [3] This definition stems from the history of the fight over Bork's nomination. Bork was widely lauded for his competence, but reviled for his political philosophy. In March 2002, the word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary under "Bork"; its definition extends beyond judicial nominees, stating that people who Bork others "usually [do so] with the aim of preventing [a person's] appointment to public office."
Perhaps the best known use of the verb to bork occurred in July 1991 at a conference of the National Organization for Women in New York City. Feminist Florynce Kennedy addressed the conference on the importance of defeating the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. She said, "We're going to bork him. We're going to kill him politically. . . . This little creep, where did he come from?"[4] Thomas was subsequently confirmed after one of the most divisive confirmation fights in Supreme Court history.
