buckeen means a poor young man of the lower Anglo-Irish gentry who aspires to the habits and dress of the wealthy. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “buckeen” is a great word
BUCKEEN — [Noun] A poor young man of the lower Anglo-Irish gentry who aspires to the habits and dress of the wealthy. From the Irish boicín, a diminutive of boc ("buck, male goat; a spirited young man"), equivalent to English 'buck' + the Irish diminutive suffix '-een'. Unlike a "squireen," which denotes a petty landholder with pretensions to squirearchy, or a "dandy," which describes a man fastidiously devoted to fashion regardless of means, the buckeen is defined by a specific, poignant dissonance: genteel poverty straining against extravagant pretense. He is the frayed lace at the cuff of a second-hand coat, the over-polished boot on a muddy lane, the hollow boast made in a near-empty glass—a portrait of aspiration drawn in the thin ink of diminishing prospects.
noun
- a poor young man of the lower Anglo-Irish gentry who aspires to the habits and dress of the wealthy.“Probably no other country could produce such a degraded type as the squireen or buckeen, the drunken, gambling, profligate descendant of the Cromwellian or Williamite settler.”