filibuster

Meanings

Noun

• A mercenary soldier; a freebooter; specifically, a mercenary who travelled illegally in an organized group from the United States to a country in Central America or the Spanish West Indies in the mid-19th century seeking economic and political benefits through armed force.
• A tactic (such as giving long, often irrelevant speeches) employed to delay the proceedings of, or the making of a decision by, a legislative body, particularly the United States Senate.
• A member of a legislative body causing such an obstruction; a filibusterer.

Verb

• To take part in a private military action in a foreign country.
• To use obstructionist tactics in a legislative body.

Related

Opposite words

• cloture

Origin

• Borrowed from Spanish filibustero ("pirate"), from French flibustier, ultimately from Dutch vrijbuiter ("freebooter"), from vrij + buit + -er. The alteration in the first syllable in French is due to the word's being somewhat conflated with vlieboot when it was borrowed into French or another language from Dutch. The word is cognate and analogous to English freebooter.