slush fund
nounDefinition of slush fund
1
: a fund raised from the sale of refuse to obtain small luxuries or pleasures for a warship's crew
2
: a fund for bribing public officials or carrying on corruptive propaganda
3
: an unregulated fund often used for illicit purposes
Examples of slush fund in a Sentence
a secret slush fund for paying bribes
Recent Examples on the Web
That’s the State Department’s big arts-and-culture slush fund. — Brian T. Allen, National Review, "The American Pavilion in the Venice Biennale: Safe and Sorry," 10 Aug. 2019 The last thing our state and the planet can afford is for cap-and-trade funds to be turned into a slush fund for pet projects that do little or nothing to improve our environment. — Fabian Núñez, The Mercury News, "Opinion: Governor, stop raiding California’s cap-and-trade funds," 10 July 2019 The expedient solution was to tap the cap-and-trade fund, which is supposed to be used for projects that reduce greenhouse gases, but that has evolved – surprise, surprise – into an all-purpose political slush fund. — Dan Walters, The Mercury News, "Walters: Budget decisions on safe water, health insurance defy logic," 13 June 2019 The piece was correct in its observation that the Commodity Credit Corp.’s enormous statutory borrowing authority is an anachronism and has been utilized irresponsibly as a slush fund. — WSJ, "Taxpayers Already Pick Up The Tab for Grain Farmers," 16 July 2018 Choi was accused of setting up two charitable foundations ostensibly to promote sports, but in fact using them as slush funds for the president and for herself. — Anna Fifield, Washington Post, "Disgraced former South Korean president gets 24 years in prison on corruption charges," 6 Apr. 2018 As Fahrenthold discovered, the Trump Foundation often operated as a slush fund for the Trump family and Trump’s businesses. — Dylan Matthews, Vox, "The Trump Foundation shows just how preposterously light our oversight of charity is," 20 Dec. 2018 Money from those accounts was used to pay bribes to government officials, pad a slush fund controlled by Malaysia’s prime minister Najib Razak, and purchase jewelry for his wife Rosmah Mansor, court documents show. — Bradley Hope, WSJ, "Justice Department Charges Ex-Goldman Bankers in Malaysia 1MDB Scandal," 1 Nov. 2018 Despite that, federal courts have used PACER revenues as a slush fund to finance other court activities. — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, "New bill would finally tear down federal judiciary’s ridiculous paywall," 17 Sep. 2018These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'slush fund.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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