The Collaborative International Dictionary
Krooman \Kroo"man\ (kr[=oo]"man), n.; pl. Kroomen (kr[=oo]"men). One of a negro tribe of Liberia and the adjacent coast, whose members are much employed on shipboard.
Usage examples of "kroomen".
You have also told the Doctor and me about the Kroomen, described as capital seamen, pilots for various stretches of the Coast, intelligent and reliable.
And since a number of Kroomen had also put off in a schooner it was likely that among them was a merchantman, taking advantage of their protection until she turned off eastwards, trading along the Grain Coast, the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast for pepper, palm-oil, elephants' teeth and gold-dust.
But most of the other inhabitants were excited, full of joy, smiling, talkative, not, except in the case of the Kroomen, from any zeal for the abolitionist cause, but from a candid, heartfelt pleasure at the thought of the money that would flow into and out of the seamen's pockets.
He came at sunrise, paddling out in one of those flexible, apparently frail canoes that the Kroomen used for landing through the monstrous surf so usual along the coast, ran up the side as nimble as a boy, saluted the quarterdeck and called out 'Papers for Lieutenant Whewell, sir, if you please,' in a tremendous bass.
Were it not for the four kroomen comprising the crew, Pengelly would not have hesitated to knock his temporary partner over the head.
There was an official inquiry, at which the Kroomen were all agreed that the affair was a pure accident, thereby clearing Pengelly of all suspicion.
And the room was full of other races -- some that looked exactly like Gallas (but the trade was never recruited from that side of Africa), some duplicates of Cameroon heads, and some Kroomen, if ever Kroomen wore evening dress.