Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BUC-A-NEER', n. [Fr. boucaner, to broil fish or flesh, to hunt oxen for their skins.]

Primarily, a bucaneer is said to be one who dries and smokes flesh or fish after the manner of the Indians. The name was first given to the French settlers in Hayti or Hispaniola, whose business was to hunt wild cattle and swine. It was afterward applied to the piratical adventurers, English and French, who combined to make depredations on the Spaniards in America. – Encyc.