An irregular combatant or skirmisher, accustomed to fight in the bush; one who fires from among the bushes.
1760. Wesley, Jrnl., 22 Nov. (1827), III. 27. If it should happen, that any one of these silly bush-fighters steps out into the plain.
1825. Blackw. Mag., XVII. 343. Cornwallis and Burgoyne had been over-reached by the despicable bush-fighters opposed to them.
1857. Mayne Reid, in Chamb. Jrnl., VII. 363. Not so much with the eye of a soldier, as with that of a hunter and bush-fighter.
