Meaning
A conspicuous public position, above all the United States presidency, that gives its holder an unrivalled platform to advocate a cause and command attention. Despite the modern ring of the word bully, the phrase in its original sense carries no menace: the pulpit is simply a raised vantage point for preaching. Almost always said of presidents, governors, mayors, and other office-holders with real platforms; the intimidation reading is a modern misconception, not the original sense. Regional use: American English; widely understood elsewhere.
Origin
Theodore Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, coined it to describe his own office - a superb platform from which to advocate an agenda - and the record of its first print appearance, relayed by Ron Elving's NPR essay, places it in The New York Times in 1909. In Roosevelt's day bully was a term of enthusiasm meaning superb or wonderful - the same sense as his famous 'Bully!' - so a bully pulpit was an excellent pulpit, and he used his for conservation, consumer protection, and whatever cause seized him. Cambridge now defines it as an important public position from which a person can let other people know his or her opinions on particular subjects. Because bully as praise has since gone archaic, the phrase is increasingly misread as implying intimidation from a position of power, a shift commentators were already noting by 2017.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- bully pulpit
- from the bully pulpit
- use the bully pulpit
Usage Examples
- The senator used the bully pulpit of her committee chair to keep the flooding story on the front pages for months.
- Governors discovered long ago that the bully pulpit can move public opinion faster than any appropriation.
- Once he resigned, he lost the bully pulpit and found his statements no longer made the evening news.