pirate
Americannoun
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pirates
plural
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a person who robs or commits illegal violence at sea or on the shores of the sea.
- Synonyms:
- plunderer, corsair, buccaneer, freebooter
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a ship used by such persons.
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any plunderer, predator, etc..
confidence men, slumlords, and other pirates.
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a person who uses or reproduces the work or invention of another without authorization.
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Also called pirate stream. Geology. a stream that diverts into its own flow the headwaters of another stream, river, etc.
verb (used with object)
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pirates,
present (3rd person singular)
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pirated,
past participle, past
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pirating
present participle
verb (used without object)
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pirates,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pirated,
past participle, past
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pirating
present participle
noun
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a person who commits piracy
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-
a vessel used by pirates
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( as modifier )
a pirate ship
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-
a person who illicitly uses or appropriates someone else's literary, artistic, or other work
-
-
a person or group of people who broadcast illegally
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( as modifier )
a pirate radio station
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verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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piratelikeadjective
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piraticadjective
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piraticaladjective
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unpiratedadjective
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unpiraticaladjective
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piraticallyadverb
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unpiraticallyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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piratesimple
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piratessimple
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have piratedperfect
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has piratedperfect
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am piratingprogressive
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are piratingprogressive
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is piratingprogressive
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have been piratingperfect progressive
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has been piratingperfect progressive
Past
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piratedsimple
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had piratedperfect
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was piratingprogressive
-
were piratingprogressive
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had been piratingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pirate
1250–1300; Middle English < Latin pīrāta < Greek peirātḗs, equivalent to peirā- , variant stem of peirân to attack + -tēs agent noun suffix
Explanation
Yarg, matey! A cartoon pirate wears an eye patch, three-cornered hat, billowy shirt, and tall black boots. In real life, a pirate just boards ships and robs them of cargo, valuables, and money, often while wearing regular boring clothes. Pirates have been around since humans have been shipping valuable goods by boat across oceans. You can also use pirate as a verb to describe what these robbers do. Today, in addition to traditional pirates, there are pirates who use digital creative material, like books, movies, games, and music, without paying for it. If you pirate a movie, you make a copy and sell it illegally. The Greek root of pirate is peirates, "one who attacks."
Vocabulary lists containing pirate
Words Every Pirate Should Know
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September Words
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August Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Radio Caroline, a former pirate radio that now mostly plays rock music, apologised in May after airing messages falsely announcing the monarch's death.
From Barron's ● Aug. 10, 2026
Apparently, a lot of people pirate his films so they can be completists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
Although fictional, the game stars real characters such as the infamous English pirate Blackbeard, and other pirates including Mary Read and Anne Bonny.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
The rumbustious pirate, now looking at 50, with salt sprinkled through his red beard, sounds oddly subdued.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 27, 2026
“My grandfather’s name was Miguel Mieras. His ancestor, Alonso, was the pirate known and feared across the seven seas as Capitan Aliento de Perro! Captain Dog Breath!”
From "The Smartest Kid in the Universe" by Chris Grabenstein
The actor who plays the lead character in the new Assassin's Creed video game about pirates has said he "tapped into" his childhood in Wales for the role.
From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2026
False rumors that Benjamin Franklin, en route from France to Philadelphia, had been captured by Barbary pirates caused a sensation.
From Salon ● Jul. 4, 2026
From 2003 through 2008, the association sued some 35,000 alleged song pirates.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2026
Once the Revolutionary War commenced, and for years after, America’s merchant marine fleet was targeted by pirates of every stripe.
From Barron's ● Jun. 5, 2026
“Why would pirates come to Bayport to hide their treasure? And why would anyone draw a map to it on an old burger wrapper instead of just digging it up?”
From "Mystery Map (The Hardy Boys: Secret Files, #3)" by Franklin W. Dixon
The biggest players in Silicon Valley are building data centers to more efficiently run copyright-infringement machines built on terabytes of pirated material.
From Salon ● Aug. 3, 2026
Anthropic recently agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a copyright-infringement lawsuit over its use of pirated books to train its models.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
Disney accuses ByteDance of loading its Seedance service “with a pirated library of Disney’s copyrighted characters from Star Wars, Marvel, and other Disney franchises.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2026
On Friday, Disney sent a cease-and-desist letter to ByteDance accusing it of supplying Seedance with a "pirated library" of the studio's copyrighted characters, including those from Marvel and Star Wars.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2026
Mary Anne searched her purse for a Kleenex, but pulled out instead a teaspoon pirated from her mother’s silver service.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
Cox also repeatedly warned alleged infringers to knock it off when Sony flagged IP addresses suspected of pirating.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
The US Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday on whether internet service providers should be held liable for the online pirating of copyrighted music by their users.
From Barron's ● Dec. 1, 2025
Alsup found the usage to be “exceedingly transformative” and “a fair use,” though the company might have broken the law by pirating a large portion of its source material.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2025
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Two men who helped run the once wildly popular pirating website Megaupload were each sentenced by a New Zealand court on Thursday to more than two years in prison.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 15, 2023
In this moment, the confident Lala seems flustered, almost like a celebrity pirate had just complimented her pirating.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
