filibuster
Apr. 2nd, 2013 07:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordfilibuster (FIL-uh-buhs-ter) - n., an irregular military adventurer, esp. one who engages in an unauthorized military expedition into a foreign country; (U.S. pol.) the use of obstructionist tactics, especially prolonged speech-making, for the purpose of delaying legislative action. v. to act as an irregular military adventurer; (U.S. pol.) to impede legislation with obstructionist tactics.
Note that the legislative sense is very strongly a U.S. usage, and thereby hangs a tale -- one I'll go through in chronological order. The ultimate root of of filibuster is Dutch vrijbuiter, literally "free-booter", someone who goes about liberating booty (in which sense it was translated into English in the 1560s as freebooter) -- in other words, a pirate or buccaneer. The word was borrowed in Spanish either directly or through French flibustier as filibustero, for raiders in the West Indies, including especially Caribbean piracy, which the Dutch participated in. Later, in the 1850s, the word was applied to various unauthorized American adventurers who meddled in central American countries, both raiding and attempting to take over -- William Walker succeeded in ruling Nicaragua for a few years -- none of them very particular about their tactics. (This episode is rarely taught in North American schools, but is VERY well known and still deeply resented in Central America.) The term reached North America in 1851 in accounts of such adventurers, and was applied by transference in 1853 to the legislative tactic (which has been around since at least the late Roman Republic) of a congressman who was specifically employing this tactic with a speech against the military kind of filibustering.
---L.
Note that the legislative sense is very strongly a U.S. usage, and thereby hangs a tale -- one I'll go through in chronological order. The ultimate root of of filibuster is Dutch vrijbuiter, literally "free-booter", someone who goes about liberating booty (in which sense it was translated into English in the 1560s as freebooter) -- in other words, a pirate or buccaneer. The word was borrowed in Spanish either directly or through French flibustier as filibustero, for raiders in the West Indies, including especially Caribbean piracy, which the Dutch participated in. Later, in the 1850s, the word was applied to various unauthorized American adventurers who meddled in central American countries, both raiding and attempting to take over -- William Walker succeeded in ruling Nicaragua for a few years -- none of them very particular about their tactics. (This episode is rarely taught in North American schools, but is VERY well known and still deeply resented in Central America.) The term reached North America in 1851 in accounts of such adventurers, and was applied by transference in 1853 to the legislative tactic (which has been around since at least the late Roman Republic) of a congressman who was specifically employing this tactic with a speech against the military kind of filibustering.
---L.
