Locofoco

[loh-koh-foh-koh]

noun

1. (sometimes lowercase),  a member of the radical faction of the New York City Democrats, organized in 1835 to oppose the conservative members of the party.

2. (lowercase),  a friction match or cigar developed in the 19th century, ignited by rubbing against any hard, dry surface.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Locofoco¹

Special use of locofoco (cigar), self-lighting, rhyming compound apparently based on loco(motive), taken to mean self-moving; -foco, alteration of Italian fuoco fire < Latin focus fireplace

Example Sentences

Hawthorne's Custom-House But a few rods from Herbert Street is the Custom-House where Hawthorne did irksome duty as "Locofoco Surveyor," its exterior being—except for the addition of a cupola—essentially unchanged since his description was written, and its interior being even more somnolent than of yore.

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Sportswriter John Kieran was able to distinguish between dodo, zobo, koto, Yo-Yo, popo, bolo, and locofoco.

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Dat he sprinciple; he kyarn vote for Locofoco, I don' keer ef he is Miss Charlotte pa, much less her step-pa.

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Bartlett's "Dictionary of Americanisms" is full of words of this kind—locofoco, for example—which lived their short lives, and then passed not only out of use, but out of memory.

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There must have been some Locofoco boys, of course, for my boy and his friends used to advance, on their side, the position that "Democrats Eat dead rats!"

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