buckaroo

(vaquero [bakéro] < Spanish vaca 'cow' < Latin vaccam 'cow'and Spanish suffix -ero 'profession or office.' Mason's speculation that a Nigerian form mbakara > bakara 'white man' is the model can easily be dismissed on linguistic grounds. See Cassidy and Hill for further details)

   1) Texas: 1827. A working cowboy; later it came to mean any ranch hand. Watts suggests that the term was popularized in pulp literature because it conjures an image of a man on a bucking horse; indeed, A. A. Hill posits a blend with the term buck(ing) as the source for the first syllable. Watts also notes that the most widely known form, buckaroo, was used in the Northwest. In the Southwest bucka-ree was common. Blevins indicates that the term buckaroo was commonly used in "the desert basins of Northern Nevada, Northern California, Eastern Oregon, and Western Idaho." Hendrickson indicates that this word has become so integrated into the English language that it has been the model for over fifty American slang words. Among those referenced by Hendrickson are stinkaroo (a bad play or movie), the old switcheroo (the act of substituting one thing for another with the intention to deceive, 'bait-and-switch tactics'), antsaroo (refers to someone who is impatient or has 'ants in his pants'), jugaroo (jail), and ziparoo (energy). The original Spanish term is vaquero, a common name for a man who cares for cattle.

   Alternate forms: (some early forms were stressed on the second syllable) baccaro, bacquero, baquero, bucaroo, buccaro, buccaroo, buchario, buckara, buckaree, buckayro, buckeroo, buckhara, bukkarer, jackeroo.

   2) Nevada: 1967. It may also be a verb meaning to work as a cowboy.

   See buckaroo¹, vaquero.