caucus

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun 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.
• noun Chiefly British A committee within a political party charged with determining policy.
• intransitive verb To assemble in or hold a caucus.
• intransitive verb To assemble or canvass (members of a caucus).

from The Century Dictionary.

• To meet in caucus; come together and confer.
• noun In U. S. politics:
• noun A local meeting of the voters of a party to nominate candidates for local offices, or to elect delegates to a convention for the nomination of more important officers.
• noun A similar congressional, legislative, or other gathering of leading members of a party for conference as to party measures and policy.
• noun Any meeting of managers or of interested persons for the purpose of deciding upon a line of policy, an arrangement of business, etc., to be brought before a larger meeting, as a convention.
• noun In Eng. politics, a large local committee of voters for the management of all electioneering business of its party: called the Birmingham system, from its introduction at Birmingham about 1880.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To hold, or meet in, a caucus or caucuses.
• noun A meeting, especially a preliminary meeting, of persons belonging to a party, to nominate candidates for public office, or to select delegates to a nominating convention, or to confer regarding measures of party policy; a political primary meeting.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun US A meeting, especially a preliminary meeting, of persons belonging to a party, to nominate candidates for public office, or to select delegates to a nominating convention, or to confer regarding measures of party policy; a political primary meeting.
• noun US, Canada A grouping of all the members of a legislature from the same party.
• verb US To meet and participate in caucus.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a closed political meeting
• verb meet to select a candidate or promote a policy