The Collaborative International Dictionary
Cateran \Cat"e*ran\, n. [Gael. ceatharnach. Cf. Kern Irish
foot soldier.]
A Highland robber: a kind of irregular soldier. [Scot.]
--Sir
W. Scott.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context historical English) A Highlander working as a professional fighter; a mercenary attached to a Scottish clan. 2 A freebooter, marauder.
Wikipedia
The term cateran (from the Gaelic ceathairne, a collective word meaning "peasantry") historically referred to a band of fighting men of a Scotland Highland clan; hence the term applied to the Highland, and later to any, marauders or cattle-lifters. An individual member is a ceithernach or catanach. According to Randy Lee Eichoff it derives from Old Celtic 'cat' (battle, war) and 'nach' (man, fellow) Catanach means war-man, warrior. Its plural is ceithern or ceithrenn or caithereine or kettering or kettenring and several other spellings.
Magnus Magnusson (awarded the Medlicott Medal of the [British] Historical Association in 1989) states in his Scotland, The Story of a Nation (2000) that some Highland chieftains retained substantial private armies of professional soldiers known as 'ceatharn' used against their neighbours (page 211).
Problems arose when the third royal son of King Robert II, Alexander Stewart, Earl of Buchan (the King's Lieutenant for areas of Scotland north of the Moray Firth) began using a force of 'caterans' himself. Subsequently, the word 'cateran' came to refer to those Highland bandits or malefactors.
Caterans feature in many Scottish novels and short stories, notably Hamish MacTavish Mhor in Walter Scott's 'The Highland Widow'.
Stories of the Cateran cattle-raiding tradition of the Scottish clans can be found in 'School of the Moon' by Stuart McHardy
Usage examples of "cateran".
The palmers and the bandits, the cateran who had tried to kill him, Iachimo and the rogue star-sailor and its creatures, the two pythonesses of the Department of Vaticination, the old guard, Coronetes, and all the clerks and soldiers in the Department of Indigenous Affairs, the mage and the soldiers who had taken the peel-house, the traitor Torin, the Constable of Aeolis and his sons and the mob, Prefect Corin and the crew of the picketboat, Dr.
The palmers and the bandits, the cateran who had tried to kill him, lachimo and the rogue star-sailor and its creatures, the two pythonesses of the Department of Vaticination, the old guard, Coronetes, and all the clerks and soldiers in the Department of Indigenous Affairs, the mage and the soldiers who had taken the peel-house, the traitor Torin, the Constable of Aeolis and his sons and the mob, Prefect Corin and the crew of the picketboat, Dr.
Others say Kuberr rewarded Cateran with an entire world to infiltrate and colonize on behalf of the Cabal.
M'Whirtle, instead of setting your men to break down the door, as if they were Highland caterans on a foray?
Yama thought that they must be soldiers, caterans or some other kind of irregulars, for they all wore bits of armor, mostly metal or resin chestplates painted with various devices, and wrist guards and greaves.
And when I remembered James More, and the red head of Neil the son of Duncan, I thought there was perhaps a fourth in the confederacy, and what remained of Rob Roy's old desperate sept of caterans would be banded against me with the others.