Also 7 buck-, 8 bac-, buc-, buchaneer, 8–9 bucanier. [a. F. boucanier orig. ‘one who hunts wild oxen’ (Littré), f. boucan a barbecue, boucaner to dry (meat) on a barbecue, to ‘jerk’: see prec. (Not in Cotgr.)]
† 1. orig. One who dries and smokes flesh on a boucan after the manner of the Indians. The name was first ‘given to the French hunters of St. Domingo, who prepared the flesh of the wild oxen and boars in this way’ (E. B. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., 261). Obs.
1661. Hickeringill, Jamaica, 43. Not able … to root out a few Buckaneers or Hunting French-men.
1710. J. Taylor, Jrnl., 11. There were a great many French Buchaneers there.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v., The antient inhabitants of Hispaniola, and the other Caribu islands … consisted of four ranks or orders … viz. buccaneers, or bull hunters, who scoured the woods.
1761. Ann. Reg., Charac., III. 2/2. The Buccaneers lived … on some spots of cleared ground just large enough to … contain their buccaning houses.
2. (From the habits which these subsequently assumed:) ‘A name given to piratical rovers who formerly infested the Spanish coasts in America’ (Falconer, Dict. Marine, 1789).
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Buckaneers, West-Indian Pirates … also the Rude Rabble in Jamaica.
1693. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), III. 96. To pardon all the buccaneers that will assist in taking Martineco.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1869), 414. Having been an old Planter at Maryland, and a Buccaneer into the Bargain.
1748. Anson, Voy., II. i. (ed. 4), 169. The usual haunt of the buccaneers and privateers.
1767. T. Hutchinson, Hist. Prov. Mass., i. 86. Bucaniers or pirates … were very numerous.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, I. Notes xxiii..
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., II. 279. A buccaneer or pirate in the Spanish Main.
attrib. 1720. De Foe, Capt. Singleton, xiii. (1840), 228. The captain … gave me some buccaneer words upon it.
3. By extension: A sea-rover who makes hostile incursions upon the coast, a ‘filibuster.’
1846. Arnold, Hist. Rome, II. xl. 564. To protect the Mamertine buccaneers.
1877. Gladstone, Glean., IV. xxiii. 355. Some of the less temperate of our adventurers (I must not call them buccaneers).
1883. Ld. R. Gower, Remin., in Glasgow Her., 13 June, 9/3. The poetic vein … was strong in that glorious old buccaneer [Garibaldi].
