Also 6 Cassacke, 7 Cossache, -aque, Cassok, Kosack, 7–8 Cosack, -ak, 8 Cossac, 9 Cossacque, Kozack, -ak. [a. Turkī quzzāq adventurer, guerilla. ‘In India it became common in sense of predatory horseman, freebooter’ (Yule).]
Name of a warlike Turkish people now subject to Russia, occupying the parts north of the Black Sea. From them the Poles organized a body of light horsemen, in which capacity they now form an important element of the Russian army. Also attrib. or adj.
1598. Hakluyt, Voy., I. 388. The Cassacke beares his felt, to force away the raine.
1687. Rycaut, Hist. Turks, II. 297. The Piracies and Depredations of the Cosacks in the Black Sea.
1698. J. Crull, Muscovy, 126. The Cosacks … were a certain Body of Soldiers, Established for the Guard of the Frontiers.
1753. Hanway, Trav. (1762), I. II. xv. 64. The Cossacks are a species of Tartars; their name signifies freebooters.
1822. Byron, Juan, VIII. lxxiv. The Kozacks, or, if so you please, Cossacques. Ibid., X. li. The parries He made ’gainst Cossacque sabres.
1855. Tennyson, Charge Lt. Brigade, iv. Cossack and Russian Reel’d from the sabre-stroke Shatter’d and sunder’d.
transf. 1877. C. Geikie, Christ, xxv. (1879), 271. To hold these fierce Cossacks of the age in check.
Hence Cossackian, Cossackic a. (rare), pertaining to the Cossacks.
1816. Gentl. Mag., LXXXVI. I. 211. Form of government … entirely kozakian.
1824. J. Gilchrist, Etym. Interpr., 14. Is not the origin of Cossackic and Hottentotic, and of all the languages [etc.]?
