The most infamous political scandal in US history that resulted in the resignation of President Richard Nixon and his VP Spiro Agnew in 1974. It centered around a burglery at the Watergate hotel in Washington by the president's operatives to dig up information on his political enemies. The scandal later used a political enemies hit list, firings in the executive branch, wiretapping, threats, the IRS, and intimidation directed toward Nixon's enemies. During Nixon's endictment he refused to surrender tapes to the FBI that he knew would have resulted in his prosecution. Once Nixon knew there were enough votes in the House to impeach him and enough in the Senate to convict him, he resigned in disgrace--the only President to do so. A few months afterward, the new President Gerald Ford gave him a total pardon, allowing him to keep retain his law license. For the rest of his life he continued to deny any involvement in the scandal--at least directly.

n. The granddaddy of the modern political scandal. Also used to refer to scandals similar to Watergate. For the press to compare a scandal to Watergate, the following conditions must be met:
1) It must be of national importance.
2) It must involve the executive branch in some way.
3) Someone outside the media must refer to it as
"a new Watergate" or, "the next Watergate".
4) Should increase angry rants against the
people involved by at least 20%.
If a scandal meets three of these conditions, it may be be given the suffix -gate but the word Watergate must remain out of the article. If it meets two of these conditions, it may be given its own name, such as "Iran-contra affair". If it meets only one of these conditions, it is refered to as "standard political procedure".

Verb: The act of breaking through a woman's hymen, preferably with fingers or a penis.

v., transitive

Taping over a door latch to prevent the door from locking. This verb is named in honor of the Watergate scandal, where this behavior was exhibited.

To escape quickly, derived from when Richard Nixon quickly resigned after the Watergate scandal started to escalate.

The act of machine shredding all of your mail after reading it instead of just throwing it in the trash. Those especially concerned about identity theft are often "watergaters".

the act of eavesdropping while texting about it with a partner who can also hear the conversation.

It's like tailgating but in the water. You also can steal some democrat party documents while you're at it. Hopefully get pardoned for all the hell you cause.

Any incredibly long, boring and mystifying process; something bad, tedious and of interest only to fools. A show put on for the public to convince them that the government is accountable and journalists have teeth. A settling of scores between rival corrupt elements of the elite. Also now used for any case of corruption, eg, Zipper-Gate, Monica-Gate, etc. Surely there should be a Gates-Gate involving Bill Gates - we just have to hope for that.