Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- To act the part of a pirate or freebooter.
- noun Originally, one of the French settlers in Hispaniola or Hayti and Tortugas, whose occupation was to hunt wild cattle and hogs, and cure their flesh.
- noun A pirate; a freebooter; especially, one of the piratical adventurers, chiefly French and British, who combined to make depredations on the Spaniards in America in the second half of the seventeenth century: so called because the first of the class were Frenchmen driven from their business of bucaning by the Spanish authorities of Hispaniola.
- noun Also spelled bucanier, buccanier.
Etymologies
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Examples
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The respective bank presidents talked solemnly of "a mere temporary flurry," Hand, Schryhart, Merrill, and Arneel went still further into their pockets to protect their interests, and Cowperwood, triumphant, was roundly denounced by the smaller fry as a "bucaneer," a
The Titan Theodore Dreiser 1908
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On the other hand, Polk Lynde, marauder, social adventurer, a bucaneer of the affections, was not so easily to be put aside, delayed, and gainsaid.
The Titan 2004
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Merrill, and Arneel went still further into their pockets to protect their interests, and Cowperwood, triumphant, was roundly denounced by the smaller fry as a “bucaneer,” a
The Titan 2004
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West Chicago Gas Company — had denounced him long before as a bucaneer who had pirated them out of very comfortable sinecures.
The Titan 2004
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Ruffled shirt, gold bucaneer boots, dangly skull-and-crossbones earrings.
Fashion Tipps. bradamant 2003
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Men who had been connected with the old gas war -- Jordan Jules, for instance, president of the old North Chicago Gas Company, and Hudson Baker, president of the old West Chicago Gas Company -- had denounced him long before as a bucaneer who had pirated them out of very comfortable sinecures.
The Titan Theodore Dreiser 1908
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On the other hand, Polk Lynde, marauder, social adventurer, a bucaneer of the affections, was not so easily to be put aside, delayed, and gainsaid.
The Titan Theodore Dreiser 1908
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Breckinridge, bronzed the color of mahogany, unshaven, with long mustache, wearing a blue flannel shirt open at the neck, exposing his broad chest, with an old slouch hat, was a typical bucaneer.
Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War George Washington Cable 1884
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The bucaneer thought the time too short, but I insisted that if O'Toole were not brought back in two hours, I would speak the first gunboat I met, and return with her and have their nest of freebooters broken up.
Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War George Washington Cable 1884
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Of course the report soon got about that Captain Goss was an old pirate, or at the best an old bucaneer; and the Barking folks used to tell how many crews he had made walk the plank, and how there was blood-marks on his hands, which he used to try to cover with tar.
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 Various 1836
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