Crossword clues for freebooter
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Freebooter \Free"boot`er\, n. [D. vrijbuiter, fr. vrijbuiten to
plunder; vrij free + buit booty, akin to E. booty. See
Free, and Booty, and cf. Filibuster.]
One who plunders or pillages without the authority of
national warfare; a member of a predatory band; a pillager; a
buccaneer; a sea robber.
--Bacon.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1560s, loan-translation of Dutch vrijbuiter "plunderer, robber," from vrijbuiten "to rob, plunder," from vrijbuit "plunder," literally "free booty," from vrij "free" (see free (adj.)) + buit "booty," from buiten "to exchange or plunder," from Middle Dutch buten, related to Middle Low German bute "exchange" (see booty).\n
\nThe English word, Danish fribytter, Swedish fribytare, and German Freibeuter were formed on the model of the Dutch word, which is the source of filibuster (q.v.). The back-formed verb freeboot is recorded from 1590s. Related: Freebooting; freebootery.
Wiktionary
n. 1 An adventurer who pillages, plunders or wages ad-hoc war on other nations. 2 One who rehosts online media without authorization; one who freeboots.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Freebooter may refer to:
- Marine freebooters, or pirates
- Filibuster (military), a group of individuals who engage in unauthorized warfare against foreign countries
- Rapparee, the Irish usage
- Meadowbrook Freebooters, American polo team
- Freebooter (comics), a fictional character
- Freebooters F.C., a former Irish football team
Usage examples of "freebooter".
After the French returned home Ducasse reserved all the negroes for himself, and many of the freebooters who had taken part in the expedition, exasperated by such a division of the spoil, deserted the governor and resorted to buccaneering on their own account.
Not Italy however, to some extent protected by the barrier of the Alps, but the rich cities and comparatively unwasted plains of Gaul attracted the royal freebooter.
One such warrior was Kothar, cast up by the sea in the northlands of his world, a sellsword and a mercenary, a wencher after the women of his day, a freebooter and a thief, at times, whose sword Frostfire was a magic sword.
The next day a still larger ambuscade was laid, which, fortunately for the freebooters, was discovered and dispersed in time, the fleeing Spaniards leaving their horses behind.
That pleasing writer betrays his ignorance, in supposing that Othman, a freebooter of the Bithynian hills, could besiege Rhodes by sea and land.
On the decline of the Carlovingian race, the nobles in every province of France, taking advantage of the weakness of the sovereign, and obliged to provide each for his own defence against the ravages of the Norman freebooters, had assumed, both in civil and military affairs, an authority almost independent, and had reduced within very narrow limits the prerogative of their princes.
But then your own High King Vortigern brought in the Jutish freebooter Hengist and his cutthroats!
Bawu they had known in the flesh, Sir Ralph Ballantyne only as a legend: Taka Taka was the onomatopoeic name the Matabele had given Sir Ralph from the sound of the Maxim machine-gun which the old freebooter had wielded to such effect during the.
Bawu they had known in the flesh, Sir Ralph Ballantyne only as a legend: Taka Taka was the onomatopoeic name the Matabele had given Sir Ralph from the sound of the Maxim machine-gun which the old freebooter had wielded to such effect during the Matabele war and the rebellion.
These enormous cruelties, which would have disgraced the arms of a Tartarian freebooter, were acted by the express command of Louis XIV.
Freebooters, armed and drunk -- a legion of gamblers, brawlers and whorehoppers.
In fact, so daring were their crimes that the home governments, stirred at last by these outrageous barbarities, seriously undertook the suppression of the freebooters, lopping and trimming the main trunk until its members were scattered hither and thither, and it was thought that the organization was exterminated.
At last the Spaniards, no longer able to endure these assaults against their commerce, sent a great force against the freebooters to drive them out of their island stronghold.
So it was that all the western world was, in those days, infested with armed bands of cruising freebooters or pirates, who used to stop merchant vessels and take from them what they chose.
They would even have stopped the pirates from doing what they did if they could, but their provincial governments were too weak to prevent the freebooters from robbing merchant vessels, or to punish them when they came ashore.