by-election

noun

by-elec·​tion ˈbī-ə-ˌlek-shən How to pronounce by-election (audio)
variants or less commonly bye-election
: a special election held between regular elections in order to fill a vacancy

Examples of by-election in a Sentence

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The investigation team questioned Kim for about seven hours on Wednesday on various allegations, including claims that Yoon and Kim exerted undue influence over the conservative party's candidate nominations for a parliamentary by-election in 2022. Kim Tong-Hyung The Associated Press, Arkansas Online, 8 Aug. 2025 The legislature will face another round of possible shake-ups when by-elections are held later this year. Timothy Nerozzi, The Washington Examiner, 28 July 2025 Both parties still have relatively few seats in parliament but have won recent by-elections and if opinion polls are to be believed, the British political system is about to be fragmented into four parties. Mike O'Sullivan, Forbes.com, 13 June 2025 But in a recent by-election, Nigel Farage’s populist, pro-Trump, Reform Party overturned a Labour majority of nearly 15,000 in Runcorn, a decayed industrial town, 15 miles upstream from Liverpool on the River Mersey. Stephen Collinson, CNN Money, 7 June 2025 See All Example Sentences for by-election

Word History

First Known Use

1853, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of by-election was in 1853

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Cite this Entry

“By-election.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/by-election. Accessed 22 Aug. 2025.

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