pirate

Plural: pirates

Noun

someone who uses another person's words or ideas as if they were his own
someone who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without having a commission from any sovereign nation
a ship that is manned by pirates
A criminal who plunders at sea; commonly attacking merchant vessels, though often pillaging port towns.
An armed ship or vessel that sails for the purpose of plundering other vessels.
One who breaks intellectual property laws by reproducing protected works without permission.
A bird which practises kleptoparasitism.
A kind of marble in children's games.

Verb

Verb Forms: pirated, pirating, pirates

To illegally copy another's work or commit robbery at sea.
copy illegally; of published material
take arbitrarily or by force
To appropriate by piracy; to plunder at sea.
To create and/or sell an unauthorized copy of.
To knowingly obtain an unauthorized copy of.
To engage in piracy.
To entice an employee to switch from a competing company to one's own.

Adj

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

Examples

He felt his opponent might PIRATE his strategy if he wasn’t careful.
He pirated in the Atlantic for years before becoming a privateer for the Queen.
Not willing to pay full price for the computer game, Heidi pirated a copy.
They pirated the tanker and sailed to a port where they could sell the ship and cargo.
You should be cautious due to the Somali pirates.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English pirate, pirat, pyrat, from Old French pirate, from Latin pīrāta (“pirate”), 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".

Synonyms

buccaneer, commandeer, highjack, hijack, literary pirate, pirate ship, plagiariser, plagiarist, plagiarizer, sea robber, sea rover, bootlegger, corsair, counterfeit, freebooter, picaroon, pirate, pirated, plagiarize, raider, reaver, sea rat, sea-robber

Scrabble Score: 8

pirate: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
pirate: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
pirate: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 9

pirate: valid Words With Friends Word