parish-pump

English

WOTD – 18 May 2025

Etymology

From parish +‎ pump, the attributive form of parish pump, alluding to its use as a place where members of a parish meet and talk to each other.[1]

Pronunciation

Adjective

parish-pump (not comparable)

  1. (UK, often politics, dated, derogatory, figurative) Of local interest or significance only; petty, parochial.
    parish pump politics    parish-pump squabbles
    • [1875?], Thomas Bardel Brindley, chapter I, in Hints, Humorous and Satirical, to All the World and His Wife. […], 3rd edition, London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. […], →OCLC, paragraph 7, page 6:
      Never avoid bars or smoke-rooms, because in the former case you miss the chance of marrying a flirt, and in the latter of having your mind improved by local parish-pump politics, and your head broken by a fool in his cups.
    • 1952 March 19 (date delivered), Victor Purcell, quoting Gerald Templer, “The Case for the Governments”, in Malaya: Communist or Free?, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, published 1954, →OCLC, page 189:
      I now turn to the question of political progress. Ten days or so ago I was criticized in a newspaper for saying that I would confine political progress to the parish-pump level. […] I believe it right to ensure that truly responsible local government at the rural community and Municipal Council levels is firmly established and as quickly as possible.
      From a speech by Templer, the British High Commissioner in Malaya, to the Federal Legislative Council of Malaya.
    • 1978, Graham Greene, chapter I, in The Human Factor, London; Sydney, N.S.W.: The Bodley Head, published 1979, →ISBN, page 14:
      I don't think I've voted once since the war. The issues nowadays so often seem—well, a bit parish pump.
    • 1985, P[eter] M[ichael] Jones, “Introduction”, in Politics and Rural Society: The Southern Massif Central c. 1750–1880, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 5:
      This study […] pays serious attention to so called parish-pump conflicts in the belief that they performed a fundamental role in shaping opinion in the countryside. The vitality of parish pump alignments had a temporal dimension, too, for it seems that the querulousness of the rural community expressed a developing perception of equilibrium and well-being.
    • 2016, Michael Böcher, Max Krott, “Case Studies”, in Eduardo Fargas, editor, Science Makes the World Go Round: Successful Scientific Knowledge Transfer for the Environment, [Cham, Zug, Switzerland]: Springer Nature, →DOI, →ISBN, page 62:
      The idea of "parish-pump politics" is well known. Instead of engaging in problem solving at the community level, local politicians often think only of their own, local community, even if it is much more reasonable to cooperate with neighbouring communities and to pursue common regional interests.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

References

  1. ^ “parish pump, n. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2024; “parish-pump, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

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