Language Matters | Filibuster: how the meaning changed from piracy to politics
- Filibuster, freebooter, flyboat all have the same Dutch ancestor: vrijbuiter, meaning ‘privateer’
A filibuster was once a pirate. The word ultimately comes from the Dutch vrijbuiter – meaning “privateer, pirate, robber” – formed from vrijbuit (“prize, spoils, plunder”), composed of vrij (“free”) and buit (“booty”).
Vrijbuiter entered English via two routes, giving two different words.
In one, the Dutch word was borrowed in the late 16th century to give the English freebooter, referring in an era of maritime trade routes to a privateer, and later more generally to a pirate or any person in search of plunder.
The spread of the word’s other form – to other languages, too – has been attributed to one of the most important sourcebooks of 17th century piracy, first published in Dutch in 1678 as De Americaensche Zee-Roovers, then translated into German, Spanish and English, as History of the Buccaneers of America.
In its 1686 French translation, the first record of the term flibustier is found.