barnburner

noun

1. One who burns down a barn.
2. (New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, slang)Synonym of phosphorus match, a friction match that can be struck anywhere.
3. (idiomatic)A sensationally exciting or successful event or person.

   “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.”

4. (US, historical, slang)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.