filibustiers

Updated: July 8, 2026

The French adventurers, however, seem always to have restricted the word "boucanier" to its proper signification, that of a hunter and curer of meat; and when they developed into corsairs, by a curious contrast they adopted an English name and called themselves "filibustiers," which is merely the French sailor's way of pronouncing the English word "freebooter."

Clarence Henry Haring - The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century