In 6 pl. caribeis, caribes, cariues. [a. Sp. caribe: see CANNIBAL.] One of the native race who occupied the southern islands of the West Indies at their discovery: in earlier times often used with the connotation of cannibal.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., I. I. (Arb.), 66. The wylde and myscheuous people called Canibales or Caribes, whiche were accustomed to eate mannes flesche.
1578. T. N., trans. Conq. W. India, 4. Others … lookyng for death and to be eaten of the Cariues.
1602. Metamorph. Tabacco (Collier), 10. Which at the Caribes banquet gouern’st all, And gently rul’st the sturdiest Caniball.
1876. Bancroft, Hist. U. S., VI. xlii. 259. The oppressed and enslaved Caribs.
Hence Caribal a. (after cannibal); Caribbean a. and sb., applied to certain of the West Indian isles, and to the sea between them and the mainland; Caribee (= CARIB).
1849. Carlyle, Disc. Nigger Question, 37. Under the incompetent Caribal (what we call ‘Cannibal’) possessors.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1858), 319. Their battles with the Caribbeans. Ibid. (1858), 320. How 300 Caribbees came and invaded them.
1777. Robertson, Hist. Amer. (1783), II. 449. A Caribbean canoe. Ibid., II. 450. The Caribbees still use two distinct languages.
