- A compounding of sleaze and the German word meiester. Meister is a loanword from German which is fairly common in creating compounds in English. The use of the German word gives the phrase a bit of a sense of fun.
sleaze-meister
noun; compounding
one who is renowned for being dishonest or corrupt.
Etymology : Sleaze is of unknown origin; it may be derived from the name of a German cloth. Only in the twentieth century did it obtain the meaning of 'sordid'. Meister is a German loanword meaning 'master'.
Source : "He [John McCain] led a crusade against Jack Abramoff and the sleaze-meisters in his own party and exposed corrupt pentagon contracts". - David Brooks, New York Times, 9-26-08
Last modified: 3 December 2008