[f. the sb.] a. intr. To hold a caucus; b. trans. To control or ‘work’ by caucuses.
1850. Carlyle, Latter-d. Pamph., I. 24. Men that sit idly caucusing and ballotboxing on the graves of their heroic ancestors.
1883. Times (Philad.), No. 2894, 18 Aug., 2/1. The Republicans of the House notified the Democrats that they, too, had conferred or caucused and had decided that they would never, while grass grew and water ran, come down one inch from their present virtuous position.
1885. St. James’s Gaz., 27 Nov., 3. They were to be caucussed, gerrymandered and bullied into silence by a pack of provincial wirepullers.
Hence Caucusing vbl. sb.
1788. W. Gordon, Hist. Amer. Rev., I. 365, note. The word caucus, and its derivative caucusing, are often used in Boston. The last answers much to what we stile parliamenteering or electioneering.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxi. 64. Instead of caucusing, paragraphing … promising, and lying, as with us.
1868. Daily News, 2 Dec., 5/5. They [Conservatives] have recently been wheedled by caucusing into household suffrage.
1885. Sat. Rev., 28 March, 410/2. To take to class-baiting and to Caucussing.
Also (in the abusive vocabulary of English party politics), Caucusable a., Caucusdom, Caucuseer, Caucuser, Caucusian, Cancusified.
1885. Sat. Rev., 14 March, 329/1. Counties, now hardly by any means caucusable, are to be brought under the operation of the Caucus. Ibid., 24 Jan., 101/2. Gnashing of teeth in Caucusdom. Ibid. (1884), No. 1476. 169/1. Their own placemen and Caucuseers. Ibid. (1888), 18 Feb., 203. A thoroughgoing Caucuser, a machine politician. Ibid. (1886), No. 1597. 773/2. Peace and good-will even among Caucussians. Ibid. (1888), 21 March, 375/2. Nothing Caucusian is alien from Mr. Chamberlain.
1885. Earl Wemyss, Sp. Ho. Lords, 18 May. They [the Peers] did not inhale the mephitic and caucusified atmosphere which elsewhere numbed the senses and paralyzed independent action.
