Locofoco

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A match (used for making fire). archaic
  2. 2
    A member of a faction of the US Democratic Party in the early 1800s, formed in New York City as a protest against that city's regular Democratic organization, Tammany Hall. US, historical

Synonyms

All synonyms
match

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Latin locus (“place”) and focus (“hearth”).

Etymology 2

From locofoco (“a match”); the term originated when a group of New York Jacksonians used such matches to light candles to continue a political meeting after Tammany men tried to break up the meeting by turning off the gaslights.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.