Meaning of barnburner | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A sensationally exciting or successful event or person.
   idiomatic
2. A member of the radical section of the Democratic party in New York, around the middle of the 19th century, which was hostile to extension of slavery, public debts, corporate privileges, etc., and supported Van Buren against Cass for president in 1848.
   US, historical, slang
3. A strike-anywhere match.
   New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, slang
4. One who burns down a barn.

Examples

“Those deathless twin barnburners return to the Metropolitan Opera tonight.”

“It is hard to know what could convince the barnburners to change their ways. The Maga base rewards them with money and the media lavishes them with airtime.”

CEFR level