Caucus

How to spell caucus

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce caucus

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does caucus mean?

1. nounA meeting of members of a political party or group to choose candidates or decide on policy.
2. verbTo meet privately as a group to decide policy or strategy.

Caucus in a sentence

• noun

  The party held a caucus to select its candidate for the by-election.

• verb

  The senators planned to caucus before the vote on the budget.

• noun

  Delegates argued late into the night during the leadership caucus.

• verb

  Committee members would caucus in a side room whenever talks stalled.

Where does caucus come from?

Language of origin: Other

Caucus is one of the genuinely American contributions to the political vocabulary of English, and its precise origin is unusually murky. It surfaces in Boston records of the early eighteenth century, where a 'Caucus Club' is mentioned as a gathering of citizens who met to plan political strategy before public elections. The most popular suggestion links it to an Algonquian word, often given as caucauasu, meaning roughly 'one who advises' or 'counsellor', which would make it a borrowing from a Native American language. Other scholars have proposed it derives from a club of Boston shipyard workers (the 'caulkers'), with the spelling drifting over time. Because no single explanation can be proven, the word is best treated as of uncertain origin, and the lone 'c' in the middle plus the -us ending are exactly the spots where writers hesitate.

How the word is built

• caucus (one indivisible root; no productive prefix or suffix, ending in the -us pattern of borrowed nouns)