pirate
Syllables: pir·ateUK/ˈpaɪɹət//ˈpaɪɹət/
pirate noun: a criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.
Noun (1)
pirate (plural pirates)
- A criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.
- You should be cautious due to the Somali pirates.
- Synonyms:
- buccaneer, corsair, sea-robber
- An armed ship or vessel that sails for the purpose of plundering other vessels.
- How did you do it? Have you searched for hidden treasure, or discovered a pole, or done time on a pirate, or flown the Channel, or what? Where is the glamour of romance? How did you get it?1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC
- The third day out a pirate (Terebinthian by her rig) overhauled us, but when she saw us well armed she stood off after some shooting of arrows on either part—1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- One who breaks intellectual property laws by reproducing protected works without permission.
- And Gnutella, Freenet and other pirate tools will offer plunderings beyond Fanning's fantasies.2001, unidentified insider, quoted in John Alderman, Sonic Boom: Napster, MP3, and the New Pioneers of Music, Da Capo Press, page 178
- They had watches that said Gucci or Rolex on them even though it was obvious they'd come straight here from some pirate factory in China.2004, David Lubar, Dunk, page 20
- Synonyms:
- bootlegger
- A bird which practises kleptoparasitism.
- A kind of marble in children's games.
- Most of the time it went fine; some of his classmates had so many marbles they could have opened up their own shop in smurfs, pirates, purple aggies and pink panthers.1999, Abdelkader Benali, Susan Massotty, Wedding by the Sea, page 60
Verb
pirate (third-person singular simple present pirates, present participle pirating, simple past and past participle pirated)
- To appropriate by piracy; to plunder at sea.
- They pirated the tanker and sailed to a port where they could sell the ship and cargo.
- To create and/or sell an unauthorized copy of.
- If a book is pirated there is a remedy for the author and publisher; if a photograph or an engraving is made of a picture without permission the law protects the painter.1904, Edward Elgar, in a speech on 4 July, 1904
- To knowingly obtain an unauthorized copy of.
- Not willing to pay full price for the computer game, Heidi pirated a copy.
- In the 1970s cable companies began to pirate some of the football games that the networks had contracted to televise.2002, John Sayle Watterson, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, page 343
- Synonyms:
- plagiarize, counterfeit
- To engage in piracy.
- He pirated in the Atlantic for years before becoming a privateer for the Queen.
- To entice an employee to switch from a competing company to one's own.
Adjective
pirate (not comparable)
- Illegally imitated or reproduced, said of a trademarked product or copyrighted work, or of the counterfeit itself.
- Synonyms:
- pirated, counterfeit
Noun (2) capitalized: Pirate
Pirate (plural Pirates)
pirate meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
pirate in Hindi
- one who plunders at sea
- जलदस्यु jaldasyu, समुद्री डाकू samudrī ḍākū, समुद्री लुटेरा samudrī luṭerā, जहाज़ी डाकू jahāzī ḍākū, जलडाकू jalḍākū
- armed ship
- दस्युपोत dasyupot, दस्यु-जहाज़ dasyu-jahāz, दस्यु-नौका dasyu-naukā
pirate in Tamil
- one who plunders at sea
- கடற்கொள்ளையன் kaṭaṟkoḷḷaiyaṉ, கடற்கொள்ளைக்காரன் kaṭaṟkoḷḷaikkāraṉ
pirate in Urdu
- ڈکیت, قزاق
pirate in Bengali
- one who plunders at sea
- জলদস্যু joldosśu
More languagesFewer languages
- pirate in Telugu
- దొంగవాడ doṅgavāḍa
- pirate in Malayalam
- കടൽക്കള്ളൻ, സാഹിത്യചോരൻ
- pirate in Kannada
- ಕಡಲುಗಳ್ಳ kaḍalugaḷḷa, ಸಮುದ್ರಚೋರ samudracōra, ಕೃತಿ ಚೋರ kṛti cōra, ಸ್ವಾಮ್ಯ ಚೋರ svāmya cōra
- pirate in Gujarati
- ચાંચિયો cā̃ciyo
- pirate in Tagalog
- tulisang-dagat, pirata, lintawanin, mamirata
- pirate in Arabic
- قُرْصَان qurṣān
- pirate in Malay
- lanun, mencetak rompak, cetak rompak
- pirate in Indonesian
- bajak laut
- pirate in Persian
- دزد دریایی dozd-e daryâyi
- pirate in Thai
- โจรสลัด joon-sà-làt
- pirate in Vietnamese
- cướp biển, hải tặc
- pirate in Myanmar
- ပင်လယ်ဓားပြ panglaidha:pra.
Examples of pirate in a sentence
- College students, with their limited budgets, often pirate software to save their money for buying more important items (like beer).2004, Wally Wang, Steal this File Sharing Book: What They Won't Tell You about File Sharing:
- Many college students now expect to sample, if not outright pirate, movies, music, software, and TV programs.2007, Diane Kresh, Council on Library, Information Resources, The Whole Digital Library Handbook, page 85:
Synonyms of pirate
Forms of pirate
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | pirates |
| plural | Pirates |
| alternative form (obsolete) | pyrate |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | pirates |
| present participle | pirating |
| past participle | pirated |
| past | pirated |
Origin of pirate
From Middle English pirate, pirat, pyrat, from Old French pirate, from Latin pīrāta (“pirate”), from Ancient Greek πειρατής (peiratḗs), from πεῖρα (peîra, “trial, attempt, plot”). Displaced native Old English wīċing, which was the word for both "pirate" and "viking".
Words formed from pirate
- air pirate
- antipirate
- archpirate
- arch-pirate
- bee pirate
- biopirate
- butt pirate
- cyberpirate
- land pirate
- minute pirate bug
- piracy
- piratable
- pirate articles
- pirate bug
- piratebush
- pirated
- pirate library
- piratelike
- pirately
- pirate perch
- pirate radio
- pirate round
- pirate ship
- pirateship
- pirate shirt
- pirate spider
- piratess
- pirateware
- piratey
- piratic
- piratical
- piratism
- poo pirate
- porch pirate
- puddle pirate
- unpirateable
Phrases with pirate
Questions about pirate
- What does pirate mean?
- Pirate means a criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.
- What is pirate in Hindi?
- Pirate in Hindi is जलदस्यु (jaldasyu), समुद्री डाकू (samudrī ḍākū), समुद्री लुटेरा (samudrī luṭerā). See Pirate meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use pirate in a sentence?
- College students, with their limited budgets, often pirate software to save their money for buying more important items (like beer).
- What part of speech is pirate?
- Pirate can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
- How do you pronounce pirate?
- Pirate is pronounced /ˈpaɪɹət/ (UK).
- What is the plural of pirate?
- The plural of pirate is pirates.
Words near pirate in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: pirate (page history and authors); Pirate (page history and authors); pirate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); pirate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-pirate.ogg.
Cite this entry: “pirate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/pirate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.