pirate

Etymology

From Old French pirate, from Latin pīrāta, 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".

noun

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.
   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 1952, C. S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
3. (by extension) 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. 2001, unidentified insider, quoted in John Alderman, Sonic Boom: Napster, MP3, and the New Pioneers of Music, Da Capo Press, page 178
   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. 2004, David Lubar, Dunk, page 20
   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. 2008, Martha Vicinus, Caroline Eisner, Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age, page 21
4. (ornithology) A bird which practises kleptoparasitism.
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. 1999, Abdelkader Benali, Susan Massotty, Wedding by the Sea, page 60

verb

1. (transitive) 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. (transitive, copyright law) To create and/or sell an unauthorized copy of.
3. (transitive, copyright law) 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. 2002, John Sayle Watterson, College Football: History, Spectacle, Controversy, page 343
   College students, with their limited budgets, often pirate software to save their money for buying more important items (like beer). 2004, Wally Wang, Steal this File Sharing Book: What They Won't Tell You about File Sharing
   Many college students now expect to sample, if not outright pirate, movies, music, software, and TV programs. 2007, Diane Kresh, Council on Library, Information Resources, The Whole Digital Library Handbook, page 85
4. (intransitive) To engage in piracy.
   He pirated in the Atlantic for years before becoming a privateer for the Queen.
5. (transitive, intransitive, Philippines) To entice an employee to switch from a competing company to one's own.

adj

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