English

Noun

Pirate ‎(plural Pirates)

1. (sports) someone connected with any of a number of sports teams known as the Pirates, as a fan, player, coach etc.
   1. (soccer) someone connected with Bristol Rovers Football Club, as a fan, player, coach etc.

English

Bartholomew Roberts, a well-known pirate (definition 1)

Noun

pirate ‎(plural pirates)

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.
3. One who breaks intellectual property laws by reproducing protected works without permission
   • 2001, unidentified insider, quoted in John Alderman, Sonic Boom: Napster, MP3, and the New Pioneers of Music, Da Capo Press, ISBN 978-0-7382-0777-3, page 178:

     And Gnutella, Freenet and other pirate tools will offer plunderings beyond Fanning's fantasies.

   • 2004, David Lubar, Dunk, page 20:

     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.

   • 2008, Martha Vicinus, Caroline Eisner, Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age, page 21:

     If we untangle the claim that technology has turned Johnny Teenager into a pirate, what turns out to be fueling it is the idea that if Johnny Teenager were to share his unauthorized copy with two million of his closest friends the effect on a record company would be pretty similar to the effect of some CD factory's creating two million CDs and selling them cheap.

4. A kind of marble in children's games.
   • 1999, Abdelkader Benali, ‎Susan Massotty, Wedding by the Sea (page 60)

     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.

Synonyms

• (one who plunders at sea): buccaneer, corsair, see also Wikisaurus:pirate
• (one who breaks intellectual property laws by copying): bootlegger

Related terms

Translations

Verb

pirate ‎(third-person singular simple present pirates, present participle pirating, simple past and past participle pirated)

1. (transitive, nautical) To appropriate by piracy, plunder at sea.

   They pirated the tanker and sailed to a port where they could sell the ship and cargo.

2. (transitive, intellectual property) To create and/or sell an unauthorized copy of
3. (transitive, intellectual property) To knowingly obtain an unauthorized copy of

   Not willing to pay full price for the computer game, Heidi pirated a copy.

   • 2002, John Sayle Watterson, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, page 343

     In the 1970s cable companies began to pirate some of the football games that the networks had contracted to televise.

   • 2004, Wally Wang, Steal this File Sharing Book: What They Won't Tell You about File Sharing

     College students, with their limited budgets, often pirate software to save their money for buying more important items (like beer).

   • 2007, Diane Kresh, Council on Library and Information Resources, The Whole Digital Library Handbook, page 85

     Many college students now expect to sample, if not outright pirate, movies, music, software, and TV programs.

4. (intransitive) To engage in piracy.

   He pirated in the Atlantic for years before becoming a privateer for the Queen.

Synonyms

• (appropriate by piracy):
• (make illegal copy): plagiarize, counterfeit
• (engage in piracy):

Translations

Adjective

pirate ‎(comparative more pirate, superlative most pirate)

1. Illegally imitated or reproduced, said of a trademarked product or copyrighted work, or of the counterfeit itself.

Synonyms

• pirated
• counterfeit

Translations

See also

• Jolly Roger
• skull and crossbones

Esperanto

Etymology

pirato ‎(“a pirate”, noun) +‎ -e.

Adverb

pirate

1. piratically

Related terms

• pirata ‎(“piratical”)
• pirati ‎(“to pirate”)

French

Etymology

From Latin pirata.

Noun

pirate m, f ‎(plural pirates)

1. pirate

Synonyms

• boucanier m
• corsaire m
• flibustier m

Derived terms

Anagrams

• paitre, paître, parité, partie, patrie, prêtai, repait, repaît

Norman

Etymology

From Old French pirate, from Latin pīrāta, from Ancient Greek πειρατής ‎(peiratḗs), from πεῖρα ‎(peîra, “trial, attempt, plot”).

Noun

pirate m ‎(plural pirates)

1. (Jersey) pirate

Old French

Noun

pirate m ‎(oblique plural pirates, nominative singular pirates, nominative plural pirate)

1. pirate (one who attacks watercraft)

References

• (fr) Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (pirate, supplement)