Definition of "bandit" []

• A robber, especially one who robs at gunpoint. (noun)
• An outlaw; a gangster. (noun)
• One who cheats or exploits others. (noun)
• Slang A hostile aircraft, especially a fighter aircraft. (noun)
• Make out like a bandit Slang To be highly successful in a given enterprise. (idiom)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But people assume the bandits are illegal as well because of what they are called 'bandits'; but the term bandit was introduced to English via Italian around 1590 in Europe...so the word existed WAY before there was even a Mexico, or United States of America."
• "Like many, she blames Mr. Yeltsin for wasting a historic opportunity, ushering in what she calls a bandit regime controlled by powerful oligarchs, and generating profound distrust of politicians."
• "She nonchalantly wrote, “Deep under them both is solid blue clay, embalming the fossil horse and fossil ox and the great mastodon, the same preserving blue clay that was dug up to wrap the head of the Big Harp in bandit days, no less a monstrous thing when carried in for reward.”"