One who lives chiefly by plunder along the sea-coast.
1847. A Dane, a Portuguese, a Finlander, a savage from Hivarhoo, sundry English, Irish, and Americans, a daring Yankee beach-comber, called Salem, and Sydney Ben, a runaway ticket-of-leave-man, made up a crew much too weak to do any good in the whaling way.—H. Melville, ‘Pacific Rovings,’ Blackwood’s Mag., lxi. 757/1. (June.) (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1880. The beach-combing pioneers of the Pacific.—J. S. Cooper, ‘Coral Lands,’ i. 242. (N.E.D.)
