Word.ws English Dictionary

freebooting

freebooting noun: piracy or plundering. Also the present participle and gerund of freeboot.

Noun

freebooting (uncountable)

  1. Piracy or plundering.
    • The Haghar are well known, even in Europe, for their freebooting propensities.1853, James Richardson, Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2
    • Why do you now refuse to protect your own highway into the Interior, […] and thus put an end to the freebooting of the Boers, and of our own people who joined them?1900, Josephine Elizabeth Butler, Native Races and the War
  2. Software piracy, or stealing or unauthorized rehosting of digital content.
    • Your recent issue about the problems of electronic software piracy or "freebooting" — if you will — was excellent and timely. However, I wonder if both sides have failed to understand the social significance of the struggle.1982, InfoWorld, volume 4, number 15, page 30
    • Freebooting of broadcast satellite signals may exist privately, but we have no evidence of illegal signal capture being commercialized any longer.1994, United States. Congress. Senate, Country reports on economic policy and trade practices

Adjective

freebooting (not comparable)

  1. Engaged in piracy or plunder
    • In one respect, as I hinted above, it is only too good, so sure of success, I mean, that you are no longer secure of any respect to your property in our freebooting America.1843, Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II.

Also used as

freebooting is also the present participle and gerund of freeboot.

Examples of freebooting in a sentence

  • In a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular business.1921, Howard Pyle, Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates:
  • Many felt that the software companies are really the ones who ought to be called pirates. […] No wonder, the reader said, that customers are tempted to a little freebooting of their own.1998, InfoWorld, volume 20, page 79:
  • Freebooting, you know, it's a serious issue!2014, Brady Haran, Hello Internet: Episode #5: Freebooting

Origin of freebooting

From freebooter (“a type of pirate”).

Questions about freebooting

What does freebooting mean?
Freebooting means piracy or plundering.
How do you use freebooting in a sentence?
In a short time freebooting assumed all of the routine of a regular business.
What part of speech is freebooting?
Freebooting can be a noun or an adjective.

Words near freebooting in the dictionary

  1. freeboot
  2. freebooted
  3. freebooter
  4. freebooters
  5. freebootery
  6. freebooting
  7. freeboots
  8. freebooty
  9. freeborn
  10. Freeborn County
  11. Freeborns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: freebooting (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “freebooting.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/freebooting. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.