FAGGOT  , a bundle of sticks used for firewood . The word is adapted from the Fr. fagot, and appears in

Italian as fagotto, the name given to the bassoon (q.v.) . " Faggot " is frequently used with reference to the burning of heretics, and recanted heretics wore an embroidered faggot on the arm as a symbol of the punishment they had escaped . In the 18th century the word is used of a " dummy " soldier, appearing on the rolls of a regiment . It is this use, coupled with the idea of a bundle of sticks as being capable of subdivision, that appears in the expression " faggot-vote," a vote artificially created by the minute splitting up of property so as to give a bare qualification for the franchise .