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FAGGOT
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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.