Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

corsair

UK/kɔːɹsɛəɹ/US/kɔːɹsɛəɹ/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,440 of 15,258mostly written

Other forms: corsairs

A corsair is a pirate, especially of the Mediterranean. Barbary corsairs, a corsair ship, raided by corsairs.

The Barbary corsairs operated from North African ports for three centuries and took captives from as far north as Iceland. Many held licences from a state, which made them privateers in law and pirates to everybody else. Note that the Latin behind it means a running or a raid.

Definitions of corsair

  1. 1nouncorsairA pirate, especially of the Mediterranean.C2

    “The merchant ship changed course as soon as the captain spotted a corsair on the horizon.”

corsair is a pirate.

Where it comes from

French corsaire comes from Medieval Latin cursarius, from cursus, a course or raid. Course and courier come from the same running.

  1. French

    corsaire

  2. English, today

    corsair

Borrowed from French corsaire. Borrowed from French corsaire, from Medieval Latin cursārius (“pirate”), from Latin cursus (“course, a running; plunder, hostile inroad”). a doublet of courser and hussar.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

corsair in the wild

  • Seized vessels and cargo were sold at auction, with the corsair captain entitled to a portion of the proceeds.

    French corsairs

  • The Barbary pirates of North Africa as well as the Ottoman Empire were sometimes called "Turkish corsairs".

    French corsairs

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.