The manipulating of legislative district boundaries by the party in power to assure that friendly voters have maximum electoral power. The term (said with a soft "g") is a mashup created in 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts (said with a hard "g") signed off on a map for the state legislature where one district looked just like a salamander – at least in the eyes of a Boston political cartoonist.
Read more about gerrymandering.
