as in buccaneer
someone who engages in robbery of ships at sea
Sir Francis Drake was a British pirate who preyed on Spanish ships with the connivance of Elizabeth I
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as in to seize
to take or make use of under a guise of authority but without actual right
using pirated software that was subject to copyright
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of pirate
Paul Bedard, The Washington Examiner, 27 Dec. 2025
Netflix has teased a glimpse at the upcoming return of the pirate adventure One Piece.
—Katie Campione, Deadline, 25 Dec. 2025
Ethan Varian, Mercury News, 9 Sep. 2025
Justin Nelson, an attorney for the authors, told Alsup that about 465,000 books are on the list of works pirated by Anthropic.
—Sheryl Estrada, Fortune, 9 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for pirate
Noun
The Houthis are now supporting Somali pirates to again raid ships in the Indian Ocean.
—Verb
Downtown Street Teams was founded in Palo Alto in 2005 by Eileen Richardson, a venture capitalist and former chief executive of Napster, a digital platform once known for pirating music that’s since become a streaming service.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for pirate
Noun
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French buccaneers spent much of the seventeenth century hiding and plundering along the northwest coast of Hispaniola, eventually realizing more money could be made farming tobacco and sugar.—
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Grant had pessimistically concluded in 1965 that the buccaneer capitalism and technocracy of the U.S. had already penetrated the True North beyond repair.—
Verb
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On December 30, two suspects, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were seized in Las Vegas.—
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Morfa said many of her Venezuelan clients have passport complications, either having their documents annulled by the Maduro administration, or expire, or get seized by ICE.—
Noun
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Leaders in Congress agreed and sent out armadas of patriot privateers to do just that, plundering British shipping around the Atlantic rim and forcing Royal Navy warships to redeploy to convoy duty.—
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The artifacts were seized through civil forfeiture, a sometimes controversial practice that dates back to the age of privateers and that has since been used to go after moonshiners, mafia dons and drug kingpins.—
Verb
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Maia’s horrified to realize that the bag was stolen; Tallulah’s mostly just annoyed she got caught.—
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Before his imprisonment, Chacón was arrested in 2024 on a domestic violence charge and, in 2025, was accused of stealing merchandise at a Walmart.—
Noun
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There is widespread, cross-partisan public support for finally clamping down on these corporate freebooters.—
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After Columbus’s first footfall in the New World, Cuba fell prey to every manner of European freebooter.—
Verb
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French authorities confiscated the cocaine.—
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While raising the kids together, Ruby and Hildebrandt abused the two youngest children with harsh punishments and torture, according to Ruby's journal that was later confiscated.—
Noun
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If peaceable trading isn't your dream, consider the corsair life, pillaging other ships for their precious cargo.—
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Set in 1492, the series follows Sara, the defiant daughter of Granada’s chief Rabbi, exiled during Spain’s expulsion of its Jewish population and captured by Ottoman corsairs (‘Korsan’ in Turkish).—
Verb
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Tri-State Fishing and Outdoor Show Don your camo gear and grab your fishing poles for the Tri-State Fishing and Outdoor Show.—
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The suspects, seen grabbing armfuls of merchandise during multiple rounds of theft, reportedly fled in a U-Haul truck, Lower Merion Police told Fox 29 Philadelphia.—
Cite this Entry
“Pirate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pirate. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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