pirate

noun

1. 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. 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?

   The third day out a pirate (Terebinthian by her rig) overhauled us, but when she saw us well armed she stood off after some shooting of arrows on either part—

3. 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.

   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. 4

   A bird which practises kleptoparasitism.

5. 5

   A kind of marble in children's games.

   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.

verb

1. 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. 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. 3

   To knowingly obtain an unauthorized copy of.

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

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

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

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

4. 4

   To engage in piracy.

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

5. 5

   To entice an employee to switch from a competing company to one's own.

adjective

1. 1

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

Forms

plural

pirates

past tense

pirated

past participle

pirated

present participle

pirating

third person singular

pirates