Term
Freebooter
Etymology
From Dutch vrijbuiter (from vrij, free, plus buit, plunder), via English translation in the late sixteenth century. The French flibustier and Spanish filibustero both derive ultimately from the same Dutch source, though Spanish filibustero arrived via French flibustier rather than by direct borrowing from Dutch.
Definition
A generic English term for an irregular maritime raider operating without state commission or outside the bounds of a commission. In contemporary English usage the term covered a range of activity from outright piracy to extra-commission privateering; it was not a sharply defined legal category. By the eighteenth century it had been largely displaced in everyday usage by pirate.
