Freebooter: The History of a Pirate Name

Freebooter is another name for a pirate. At first glance, it looks as if two English words were simply put together to form the new word. But the term did not originate in English at all.

In the 16th century, when piracy on the high seas was rife in many parts of the world, one of the terms that arose to denote a pirate was the Dutch word vrijbuiter. It comes from vrijbuit ("plunder") and -er ("-er," a suffix indicating one engaged in the action). Therefore, a vrijbuiter was a "plunderer."

Vrijbuit itself consists of two parts: vrij ("free") and buit ("booty"), the booty being free, of course, because it was taken by force. The core of the word lies in buit, which is based on the verb buiten ("to plunder").

English speakers, hearing the Dutch word vrijbuiter, soon reshaped it by folk etymology into constituent parts more familiar to them. Vrij became "free," buit became "boot"(conceived either as footwear or as short for booty), and -er needed no change. Result: freebooter.

Alternate early forms, while the word was going through the folk-etymology process, included frebetter and fribooter. Here is a quotation using frebetter: "For so much as I was spoyled by the waye in cominge towards England by the Duke of Alva his frebetters" (1570, Oxford English Dictionary).

Within a few years, the modern form was already in place: "They tooke five...ships of the Freebooters" (1598, Oxford).

Like pirate, the word freebooter denoted a seafarer who roamed the oceans in search of plunder, a member of a predatory band, or a piratical adventurer, whether on the sea or on the land.

Here is an example of using the word to refer to land-based plunderers: "The Danites were...Free-booters...and did all by force" (before 1659, Oxford). The Danites were an ancient Hebrew tribe, who in this passage are being discussed in a sermon.

Here is an example of using the word for seafaring plunderers: "The ships there...fired several shot at me, mistaking me for a free Booter" (1726, Oxford).

Some observers differentiated freebooters and pirates, taking the latter to be more hardcore criminals: "St. Domingo was established by pirates and free booters" (1776, Oxford) and "Every freebooter was, or might easily become, a pirate" (1838, Oxford).

The intransitive verb to freeboot is a back-formation of the noun freebooter. In fact, the verb saw life almost as soon as the noun, being recorded as early as 1592. It simply means to act as a freebooter.

Today freebooter is still widely used to mean a pirate or a plunderer.
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The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1989.