pirate
Pluralpirates
Verbpirates, pirating, pirated
Pluralpirates
Formspirates, pirating, pirated
- 1A criminal who robs ships at sea, often attacking merchant vessels or raiding port towns.
The pirate boarded the merchant ship and seized its cargo.
Coastal towns lived in fear of pirates who raided without warning.
Note
The sea-robber is the sense the other uses extend. The word came through French and Latin from Greek peiratḗs, built on peîra, "attempt, plot", and it displaced Old English wīċing, which had meant both "pirate" and "viking". Buccaneer and corsair are near synonyms. A privateer is different: a privateer raided under a state's commission, while a pirate answers to no authority at all.
- 2Someone who copies protected works such as music, movies, or software without authorization, in breach of intellectual property law.
A pirate had copied the album and was selling it on the street.
Record labels pursued pirates who distributed their songs for free.
Similarbootlegger
Note
Copying took the sea-robber's name, and writers often keep the whole metaphor afloat. In John Alderman's Sonic Boom (2001), file-sharing programs are "pirate tools" that offer "plunderings". Before another noun the word shades into the adjective for counterfeits, as in a pirate factory turning out fake Rolexes. The closest synonym is bootlegger.
- 3To make or sell an unauthorized copy of a protected work.
Vendors pirate popular software and burn it onto cheap discs.
He pirated the studio's latest film and posted it online.
Similarbootleg, copy, counterfeit
Note
The copying sense is far older than the computer. Edward Elgar, speaking on 4 July 1904, could already say that "if a book is pirated" the author and publisher have a remedy. The passive is common, because the work is the thing wronged. The word covers both making a copy and selling it, while taking one for yourself is the downloader's sense.
- 4An armed vessel that sails for the purpose of plundering other ships.
The pirate overtook the galleon and forced it to surrender.
Several pirates lay in wait near the narrow strait.
Similarcorsair
Note
The vessel borrows the name of the sea-robber who sails it, and with it the ship's pronoun. In C. S. Lewis's The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), a pirate "overhauled us" and then "she stood off" when she saw the ship was well armed. When pirate is followed by she or her, the ship is meant, not the crew.
- 5
- 6To appropriate goods by piracy, plundering them from ships at sea.
The crew would pirate spices and silk from eastern traders.
They pirated the merchant's entire shipment of gold.
Similarplunder, loot, steal, seize
Note
Here the verb takes an object, and that object can be the loot or the vessel itself: they pirated the tanker, then sold ship and cargo together. Without an object the word becomes the intransitive verb, which names a way of life rather than a single raid. Keep this sense for seizure at sea. Copying a film or a song belongs to the copying sense.
- 7To knowingly obtain an unauthorized copy of a protected work.
She pirated the film from a sketchy website.
Teenagers often pirate music rather than pay for it.
Note
This sense belongs to the person who takes the copy, not the one who makes it. Knowingly is the key word, and writers often set it against milder verbs: students who "sample, if not outright pirate" music and films. Institutions can do it too. In John Sayle Watterson's College Football (2002), cable companies pirate games that the networks had contracted to televise.
- 8Illegally copied or imitated, said of a trademarked product, a copyrighted work, or the fake copy itself.
Customs officers seized thousands of pirate handbags at the port.
He was caught running a pirate streaming service from his apartment.
Similarcounterfeit, bootleg, fake, illegal, unlicensed
Oppositegenuine, authentic, legitimate, licensed
- 9A bird that feeds by stealing prey other birds have already caught.
A pirate harried the tern until it released its meal in mid-air.
Skuas behave as pirates, robbing other birds of their hard-won prey.
Note
Ornithologists use the word for a way of feeding, not for a family of birds. The habit is kleptoparasitism: living off food that another bird has already caught. Skuas and certain frigatebirds are the usual examples, chasing other seabirds until they drop their catch. Any species that does this can be called a pirate, so the word describes behavior rather than classification.
- 10To entice an employee away from a competing company to join your own.
The startup pirated three top designers from a larger agency.
Established firms pirate ruthlessly whenever fresh talent enters the market.
Similarpoach, lure, steal, headhunt
Note
This business use belongs to Philippine English, and it works with or without an object. A firm can pirate three designers from a rival, or simply pirate whenever new talent appears. Readers elsewhere may hear only the sea-robber or the copyist in it, so in international writing a plainer phrase such as lure away is safer.
- 11A specific kind of marble used by children in playground games.
The boy traded a pirate for two ordinary marbles.
Their pockets were full of pirates after the lunchtime match.
Note
The playground gives its marbles fanciful names, and pirate is one of them. In Abdelkader Benali's Wedding by the Sea (1999, translated by Susan Massotty), a well-stocked classmate holds "smurfs, pirates, purple aggies and pink panthers". The word names a recognized type that children trade and count, and like the others it takes a plural.
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Origin
The word came into Middle English from Old French pirate, from Latin pīrāta 'pirate', from Ancient Greek peiratḗs, from peîra ('trial, attempt, plot'). It replaced the native Old English word wīċing, which meant both 'pirate' and 'viking'.