sea rover

Noun

sea rover (plural sea rovers)

1. (UK, archaic, colloquial) A herring.
2. (literally) One who travels the ocean; one who spends a great deal of time at sea.
   • Then down the brave man lay with his bolster
     under his head and his whole company
     of sea-rovers at rest beside him.1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 23

   Synonyms:

   corsair

3. A pirate, buccaneer or privateer; an ocean-going marauder.
   • […] there be dispersed and seuered abrode, sundery light, leude, idle, sedicious, busie, and disordered persones, whereof the moste part haue neither place to inhabite in neither seketh any staye to liue by, but hauyng been either condempned of Felonies, & prison breakers, runne from the warres and...1549, “A Proclamacion, for tale tellers” in All such proclamacions, as haue been sette furthe by the Kynges Maiestie, London, 1551, pp. lvi-lvij
   • The turning of your ship into a sea-rover would have made the entire ocean a scene of outrage, rapine, and murder.1843 April 18, New York Insurance Co. et al., "To Commander A.S. Mackenzie", Niles National Register vol. 64 http://books.google.com/books?id=ZSqY7wD2xYgC, page 179, originally published in the New...

   Synonyms:

   pirate