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pirate

UK/ˈpaɪɹət/US/ˈpaɪɹət/
nounB1Common in everyday speech and writing · #2,955 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: pirates

A pirate is somebody who robs ships at sea, or who copies work illegally. A pirate ship, software pirates, pirate radio.

Piracy at sea is still a live crime, particularly off parts of Africa and Asia. Pirate radio stations broadcast without a licence, and the offshore ones of the 1960s forced British radio to change entirely.

WarX, edited by Manuel Strehl · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of pirate

  1. 1nounpirateSomebody who robs ships at sea, or who copies work illegally.B1

    “The pirates boarded the ship and stole its cargo of gold.”

pirate is a robber.

Where it comes from

Greek peirates comes from peiran, to attempt or attack, from peira, a trial.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *per-

  2. Old French

    pirate

  3. Middle English

    pirate

  4. English, today

    pirate

Built from

  • πεῖρα · Ancient Greek — trial, attempt, plot

From Middle English pirate, from Old French pirate. From Middle English pirate, pirat, pyrat, from Old French pirate, from Latin pīrāta (“pirate”), from Ancient Greek πειρατής, from πεῖρα (“trial, attempt, plot”). Displaced native wīċing, which was the word for both "pirate" and "viking".

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

pirate in the wild

  • Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies.

    Blackbeard

  • John Rackham was an English pirate operating in the Bahamas and Jamaica during the early 18th century.

    John Rackham

  • According to Johnson, Rackham was a pirate from England who served under Charles Vane before becoming captain.

    John Rackham

  • After arriving in Nassau, Bonnet met the infamous pirate Blackbeard, with whom he developed a close union despite initially being enemies.

    Stede Bonnet

  • Rhett arrested the pirates and brought them to Charles Town (now Charleston, South Carolina) in early October.

    Stede Bonnet

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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.