One entry found for buccaneer.

Main Entry: buc·ca·neer
Pronunciation: bk--ni()r
Function: noun
Etymology: from French boucanier "hunter who smokes meat over a grill"
: ¹PIRATE
Word History In the 17th century Frenchmen living off the land on West Indian islands were known as boucaniers because they preserved meat by smoking it over a wooden grill. The grill was called a boucan, after the Brazilian Indian name for it. When some of these men took to the sea as pirates, the word boucanier continued to be applied to them, and was borrowed into English as buccaneer.