Fagot

Fagot, a bundle of sticks or small branches of trees bound together. In times of religious persecution, the fagot was a badge worn on the sleeve of the upper garment of such person as had abjured heresy, being put on after the person had publicly carried a fagot to some appointed place, by way of penance. To leave off the wearing of this badge was sometimes regarded as a sign of apostasy. Among military men in England, fagots were persons hired by officers whose companies were not full, to hide the deficiencies of the company. Fagot votes, in English politics, were votes created by the partitioning of an estate into numerous small tenements, which were let to persons at an almost nominal rent, upon condition of voting at elections, according to the dictates of the lessor.

Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.

Fag"ot (?) n. [F., prob. aug. of L. fax, facis, torch, perh. orig., a bundle of sticks; cf. Gr. bundle, fagot. Cf. Fagotto.]

1.

A bundle of sticks, twigs, or small branches of trees, used for fuel, for raising batteries, filling ditches, or other purposes in fortification; a fascine.

Shak.

2.

A bundle of pieces of wrought iron to be worked over into bars or other shapes by rolling or hammering at a welding heat; a pile.

3. Mus.

A bassoon. See Fagotto.

4.

A person hired to take the place of another at the muster of a company.

Addison.

5.

An old shriveled woman.

Fagot iron, iron, in bars or masses, manufactured from fagots. -- Fagot vote, the vote of a person who has been constituted a voter by being made a landholder, for party purposes. [Political cant, Eng.]

© Webster 1913.

Fag"ot (?) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Fagoted; p. pr. & vb. n. Fagoting.]

To make a fagot of; to bind together in a fagot or bundle; also, to collect promiscuously.

Dryden.

© Webster 1913.