piratical
/paɪˈɹætɪkɘl/
piratical adjective: of, pertaining to, or similar to pirates.
Adjective
piratical (comparative more piratical, superlative most piratical)
- Of, pertaining to, or similar to pirates.
- A nursery-maid is never afraid of what you people call work,
So I made up my mind to go as a kind of piratical maid-of-all-work;1879, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert, Arthur Sullivan, composer, “When Frederic Was a Little Lad”, in The Pirates of Penzance […], Philadelphia: J.M. Stoddart & Co., published 1880, →OCLC, page 5 - He looks piratical, with his beard and long hair and single pearl earring, or like a jumble-sale 17th century nobleman.2019 September 14, Miranda Sawyer, “Mark Leckey: ‘There has to be a belief that art has this power, this charisma'”, in The Guardian
- A nursery-maid is never afraid of what you people call work,
- Of a bird, practising kleptoparasitism.
Forms of piratical
| comparative | more piratical |
|---|---|
| superlative | most piratical |
| alternative form | piratic |
Origin of piratical
From Latin pīrāticus + -al, from Ancient Greek πειρᾱτικός (peirātikós); equivalent to pirate + -ical.
Words formed from piratical
Questions about piratical
- What does piratical mean?
- Piratical means of, pertaining to, or similar to pirates.
- What part of speech is piratical?
- Piratical is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce piratical?
- Piratical is pronounced /paɪˈɹætɪkɘl/ (US).
Words near piratical in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: piratical (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.
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