pirate
Forms
- Plural
- pirates
- present (v1)
- pirate
- past (v2)
- pirated
- past participle (v3)
- pirated
- present participle
- pirating
- 3rd person singular
- pirates
Definitions
1.A criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.
- You should be cautious due to the Somali pirates.
2.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?
3.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.
- 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.
4.A bird which practises kleptoparasitism.
1.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.
2.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.
3.To knowingly obtain an unauthorized copy of.
- Not willing to pay full price for the computer game, Heidi pirated a copy.
- Many college students now expect to sample, if not outright pirate, movies, music, software, and TV programs.
- In the 1970s cable companies began to pirate some of the football games that the networks had contracted to televise.
4.To engage in piracy.
- He pirated in the Atlantic for years before becoming a privateer for the Queen.
Frequency
Overall
Rare· #4678
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Etymology
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".