Definition of "caucus" []

• A meeting of the local members of a political party especially to select delegates to a convention or register preferences for candidates running for office. (noun)
• A closed meeting of party members within a legislative body to decide on questions of policy or leadership. (noun)
• A group within a legislative or decision-making body seeking to represent a specific interest or influence a particular area of policy: a minority caucus. (noun)
• Chiefly British A committee within a political party charged with determining policy. (noun)
• To assemble in or hold a caucus. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Winning in caucus is not democratic, its more like a boiling room brawl, muscling people."
• "The term caucus apparently comes from an Algonquin word meaning "gathering of tribal chiefs," and the main crux of the caucus system today is indeed a series of meetings."
• "Some of these discussions have bordered on the absurd: as I recounted in my post on the politics of the term 'mommy blogger,' I once had the unique pleasure of debating the question of whether or not the term caucus - as in, should we form a women's caucus in order to have a forum for women's issues in the department?"