Statesmanship is skill and wisdom in managing public affairs. An act of statesmanship.
It means thinking past the next election, which is why it is so rarely praised at the time. Statesmanship is usually recognised twenty years after the person is out of office.
1nounstatesmanshipSkill and wisdom in managing public affairs.
“It took real statesmanship to lose that vote on purpose.”
statesmanship is a skill.
Proto-Indo-European
*skey-
Middle English
schip
English
ship
English, today
statesmanship
From statesman + -ship. ship comes from Middle English schip. From Middle English chip, schepe, schip, schup, scip, scippe, ship, shup, ssip, from Old English sċip, sċyp, from Proto-West Germanic skip, from Proto-Germanic skipą (“ship; tub, vessel”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European skey- (“to split”). More at shift. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA