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Pirate   /pˈaɪrət/   Listen
Pirate

verb
(past & past part. pirated; pres. part. pirating)
1.
Copy illegally; of published material.
2.
Take arbitrarily or by force.  Synonyms: commandeer, highjack, hijack.



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"Pirate" Quotes from Famous Books



... noticed the Tasso fort, built by the English in 1695. The next account is by Mr. Surveyor Smith, [Footnote: He is mentioned in the last chapter.] who says 'it is not certain when the English became masters of Sierra Leone, which they possessed unmolested until Roberts the pirate took it in 1720.' Between 1785 and 1787 Lieutenant John Matthews, R.N., resided here, and left full particulars concerning the export slave-trade, apparently the only business carried on ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... substances ignite spontaneously is explained by chemic phenomena, the conditions of which do not exist in the human frame. Watkins in speaking of the inflammability of the human body remarks that on one occasion he tried to consume the body of a pirate given to him by a U. S. Marshal. He built a rousing fire and piled wood on all night, and had not got the body consumed by the forenoon of the following day. Quite a feasible reason for supposed spontaneous human combustion is to be found in several cases quoted ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... forced to abandon his search. And this man Raleigh captured, and from him extorted his secrets, when he sailed to discover and conquer El Dorado for Queen Elizabeth, having in his company Jacob Whiddon, the English pirate, and George Gifford who was ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson

... May, Lulu, and Bertha would have translated it thus: "our old ginghams and our own way;" while Dinah, if asked, would have defined "comfort" as having the kitchen "clar'd up" after a successful bake, and being free to sit down, darn stockings, and read the "Illustrated Pirate's Manual," a newspaper she much affected on account of the blood-thirstiness of its pictures. None of these various explanations of the word mean the same thing, you see. And the drollest part is that no one ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... course as near as we could to the coast of France, for fear of the enemy. As we sailed along, we met a vessel of Ostend, who complained to our admiral, that a French privateer had robbed him that very morning; whereupon we endeavoured to pursue the said pirate; but our labour was in vain, not being able to ...
— The Pirates of Panama • A. O. (Alexandre Olivier) Exquemelin

... which individual prowess elevates the possessor to the rank of a demigod; times of unsettled law and indistinct control;—of adventure—of excitement;—of daring qualities and lofty crime. We recognise in the picture features familiar to the North: the roving warriors and the pirate kings who scoured the seas, descended upon unguarded coasts, and deemed the exercise of plunder a profession of honour, remind us of the exploits of the Scandinavian Her-Kongr, and the boding banners of the Dane. The ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... apparel. Through all these vagaries on the part of the patients the nurses remained kind and careful as ever. This was especially conspicuous in one case, where a patient insisted that his nurse was a Chinese pirate, and behaved accordingly, but she gave her charge the same excellent attention as before. At this time I began to be troubled with the pangs of a great hunger. After subsisting for five weeks on milk alone, my food diet began with small doses of cornflour and with large doses of castor oil, but ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various

... principal chiefs, and one of their adepts, flying from the determined pursuit of the English governor-general, having succeeded in making their escape, had arrived at the Straits of Malacca, at no great distance from our island; a smuggler, who is also something of a pirate, attached to their association, and by name Mahal, took them on board his coasting vessel, and brought them hither, where they think themselves for some time in safety—as, following the advice of the smuggler, they lie concealed in a thick forest, in which are many ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... frigate lay at anchor under the shore batteries off Algiers, the Dey attempted to requisition her to carry his ambassador and some Turkish passengers to Constantinople. Bainbridge, who felt justly humiliated by his mission, wrathfully refused. An American frigate do errands for this insignificant pirate? He thought not! The Dey pointed to his batteries, however, and remarked, "You pay me tribute, by which you become my slaves; I have, therefore, a right to order you as I may think proper." The logic of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... they began to sing military songs, to drink to each other with their flasks filled to the brim with the rich wine of Xeres, toasting to the long life of the mighty Emperor Charles V., who was now besieging the pirate-nest Tunis, and to whose assistance they were about to sail. The merry soldiers were not all of one race. Only two companies consisted of Spaniards; the third was formed of pure Germans, and now and then among the various fellow-combatants ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque

... he found the name by which the world knows today one of the foremost American authors. Yet, in those early days in Hannibal, he had no idea of writing. Indeed, his days were so busy it is not likely he thought much of the future at all. He was the leader of a band of boys that played Bandit, Pirate and Indian. Sam Clemens was always chief. He led the way to the caves whose chambers reached far back under the cliffs and even, perhaps, ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford

... him. In spite of all the malice with which his enemies fouled him living and dead, Sieur Radisson was never the common buccaneer which your cheap pamphleteers have painted him; though, i' faith, buccaneers stood high enough in my day, when Prince Rupert himself turned robber and pirate of the high seas. Pierre Radisson held his title of nobility from the king; so did all those young noblemen who went with him to the north, as may be seen from M. Colbert's papers in the records de la marine. Nor was the disembarking of furs at Isle Percee an attempt ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... 42. corsair: pirate. Originally "corsair" was applied to privateers off the Barbary Coast who preyed upon Christian shipping under the authority of ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various

... "Your Greek pirate of the good luck went close to madness at the certain fact that for months he had been walking steadily away from the place where this was found. To the girl it was a sacred thing hidden in the earth of her land by the sun—and only to be used for ceremonies. The place ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... lightning on the summit of Mount Palatine, which was called Summa Velia, and have the particulars given us of a fire which took place on Mount Coelius, together with an account of the crucifixion of a certain noted pirate. Dramatic intelligence is represented by a description of the plays acted in honor of the goddess Cybele; and under the head of 'fashionable intelligence,' the Jenkins of the day chronicles the funeral of Marcia, a noble Roman matron, and ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various

... visitor, speaking in his natural voice this time. "I'm here safe and sound, and none the worse for having been a prisoner in the hands of that pirate, Captain Semmes." ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... great numbers, ready at the prayer of the righteous man to hie to his aid and work him a thousandfold good. Ahriman, likewise, created an equal number of assistant demons, peopling the filthy domain of Darkness with counterbalancing swarms of infernal followers of his pirate flag, who lurk at the summit of hell, watching to snatch every opportunity to ply their vocation of sin and ruin. There are such hosts of these invisible antagonists sown abroad, and incessantly active, that every star is crowded and all space teems with them. Each man has ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... taken into slavery by an Algerine, was asked what he could do. His answer was, that he had been used to a sedentary employment. "Well, then," said the pirate, "you shall have a pair of feather breeches, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... if you are partly responsible, you ought so much the more to do what you can to shield his reputation. You should have said,"—the attorney changed to French,—"'He is no pirate; he has merely taken out letters of marque and reprisal under the flag of the republic ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... foundation as a good deal of other information which I derived at the same period from the same source. There was a merchant ship in which a member of the Society of Friends had taken passage, and that ship was attacked by a pirate, and the captain thereupon put into the hands of the member of the Society of Friends a pike, and desired him to take part in the subsequent action, to which, as you may imagine, the reply was that he would ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... himself was old enough to have any thoughts about his future destiny, he made up his mind that he would like to be a pirate. A few months later, having contracted an immoderate taste for candy, he contented himself with the comparatively humble position of a baker; but when he had read "Robinson Crusoe" he manifested a ...
— A Good-For-Nothing - 1876 • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... and down the river since sundown, looking for color. He had evidently peopled every dark corner with a pirate, and every floating object had meant something to him. He had adventure written all over him. It was the first time I had ever seen him, and I had never heard of him. I can't now recall another figure in that smoke-filled room. I don't remember who introduced ...
— Appreciations of Richard Harding Davis • Various

... could say aught, and it was on my mind to tell the pirate what I thought of him, if I spent my last breath in doing it, the courtman who had spoken with me just now answered ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler

... as her brown eyes met his in one of her flashing glances. She mentioned Hornbrook Creek in her low, caressing voice as though it were only an item of landscape, and the report of the engineers might have been a pirate's round-robin, hidden in an old sea chest from the way she spoke of it. It was inconceivable that she had prepared for this interview. She touched her pompadour lightly with the back of her hand—the smallest of hands—and he was so lost in admiration of the witchery ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson

... or Betsy France," replied the Irishman, impudently. "No thanks to you aither for givin' me the chance. Sure it's the likes o' you that bring war into disgrace intirely; goin' about the say on yer own hook, plunderin' right an' left. It's pirate, and not privateers, ye should be called, an' it's myself that would string ye all at the yard-arm av I only had me ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne

... will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still. Each age has deemed the new-born year The fittest time for festal cheer; E'en, heathen yet, the savage Dane At Iol more deep the mead did drain; High on the beach his galleys drew, And feasted all his pirate crew; Then in his low and pine-built hall, Where shields and axes decked the wall, They gorged upon the half-dressed steer; Caroused in seas of sable beer; While round, in brutal jest, were thrown The half-gnawed rib and marrow-bone; Or listened all, in grim delight, While scalds yelled out the ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... quid pro quo in return for the relief obtained by the statute of Queen Anne—the first which recognized literary property. "For," argued they, "previously to that statute, supposing your book pirated, at common law you could obtain redress only for each copy proved to have been sold by the pirate; and that might not be a thousandth part of the actual loss. Now, the statute of Queen Anne granting you a general redress, upon proof that a piracy had been committed, you, the party relieved, were bound to express your sense of this relief by a return made to the public; ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... said Miss Skeat, sternly clutching the twisted wire shroud. "I would like to see you turn pirate; it would be so picturesque—you and Mr. Barker." The others laughed, not at the idea of Claudius sporting the black flag—for he looked gloomy enough to do murder in the first degree this morning—but the picture of the exquisite ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... inclined to sleep, and at her request related some of the events of my convent life. While doing this, I hardly knew what to make of this curious woman. Sometimes she would weep, and then she would swear like any pirate. I was surprised and somewhat afraid of her, she seemed so strange and used such peculiar language. She understood my feelings at once, and immediately said, "You need not be afraid of me, for I have a kind heart, if I do use wicked words. I cannot help swearing when I think about the priests, ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... apiece and eaten some supper, Cuthbert deliberately filled the aluminum receptacle, added condensed milk, with sugar, and then gravely presented it to the fellow whom he judged was the boss of the outfit, a big, raw-boned French-Canadian voyageur, with a beard like a pirate. ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... The pirate who had made Marina his prize carried her to Mitylene, and sold her for a slave, where, though in that humble condition, Marina soon became known throughout the whole city of Mitylene for her beauty and her virtues; and the person to whom she was sold ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... withdraws itself into a secrecy unapproachable by eyesight, or by filial love, or by guesses of the brain—and that is the death of oedipus. Did he die? Even that is more than we can say. How dreadful does the sound fall upon the heart of some poor, horror-stricken criminal, pirate or murderer, that has offended by a mere human offence, when, at nightfall, tempted by the sweet spectacle of a peaceful hearth, he creeps stealthily into some village inn, and hopes for one night's respite from his terror, but suddenly feels the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... ink, and paper, in perfect independence of which, all his compositions were completed. It is impossible to describe the jealousy with which he regarded the presence of writing materials of any kind, and his ever wakeful fears lest some literary pirate should transfer his oral poetry to paper—fears which were not altogether without warrant, inasmuch as the recitation and singing of these original pieces were to him a source of wealth and importance. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... struggling French colony of Laudonniere, planted there by Admiral Coligny the year before, and barbarously destroyed by the Spaniards soon after Hawkins's departure.[14] The difference between our age and Queen Elizabeth's is illustrated by the fact that Hawkins, instead of being put to death as a pirate for engaging in the slave-trade, was rewarded by the queen on his return with a patent for ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler

... they had been written. It seemed that thirty-six years ago (a year before the date of the letters) she had married, against the wish of her relations, an American of very suspicions character; in fact, he was generally believed to have been a pirate. She herself was the daughter of very respectable tradespeople, and had served in the capacity of a nursery governess before her marriage. She had a brother, a widower, who was considered wealthy, and who had one child ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... fleet is miserably destroyed; Brihtric, Edric's brother, a man like-minded to himself; accused Wulfnoth, the ealdorman of Sussex, of high treason; the ealdorman, knowing that he had no chance of justice, seduced the crews of twenty ships, and became a pirate, like unto the Danes themselves. Brihtric pursued him with eighty ships, but being a bad sailor, got aground in a storm, and Wulfnoth came and burned all which the storm spared. The commanders and crews have forsaken the rest of the ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake

... back the reply. "What's up?" The commodore had not read as deeply in pirate lore as had Archie, and was not, therefore, so ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith

... factors, thoroughly qualified by a long experience to transact business both in the palaces and in the bazaars of the East, and accustomed to look for direction to the India House alone. The private trader therefore still ran great risk of being treated as a smuggler, if not as a pirate. He might indeed, if he was wronged, apply for redress to the tribunals of his country. But years must elapse before his cause could be heard; his witnesses must be conveyed over fifteen thousand miles of sea; and in the meantime he was a ruined man. The experiment of free trade with India ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... pieces—his promises among them. And it isn't his fault—it's the Spanish and Dutch blood in his veins—the blood of that old hidalgo and his Dutch ancestor, De Ruyter—that crops out once in a while. Harry would be a pirate and sweep the Spanish main if he had lived in those days, instead of being a gentleman who values nothing in life so much as ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... men with fishy eyes and large waistcoats, and they sit smoking cigars and brooding on what they are going to do to the market next day. If I were a mind-reader I could have made a dozen fortunes by now. I sat opposite that old pirate, Bruce Bishop, for over an hour the very day before he and his gang sent Consolidated Pea-Nuts down twenty points! If I had known what was in the wind, I doubt if I could have restrained myself from ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse

... taste; it was due largely to him that the fame of the Ramos gin-fizz and the Sazerac cocktail became national. His grandfather, General Dreux, had drunk at the old Absinthe House with no less a person that Lafitte, the pirate, and had frequented the house on Royal Street when Lafayette and Marechal Ney were there. It was in this house, indeed, that he had met Louis Philippe. His grandson had such a wealth of intimate detail at his finger tips that it was a ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... Franklin could have told, and doubtless did tell, of her old home at Nantucket!—stories of the true hearts of the pioneers, of people who loved others more than themselves, and not like the sea-rovers who at this time were making material for the Pirate's Own Book. ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth

... put every able-bodied man at work. It was a motley crowd. Creoles, Frenchmen, Spaniards, prison convicts, negroes, and even Lafitte, the far-famed "Pirate of the Gulf," and his crew of buccaneers, answered Jackson's call. The people cheerfully submitted to martial law. The streets resounded with "Yankee Doodle" and with "The Marseillaise" sung in English, ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell

... throne of the emperor Shun-chi did not restore peace to the country. In Kiang-si, Fu-kien, Kwang-tung and Kwang-si the adherents of the Ming dynasty defended themselves vigorously but unsuccessfully against the invaders, while the pirate Cheng Chi-lung, the father of the celebrated Coxinga, kept up a predatory warfare against them on the coast. Eventually he was induced to visit Peking, where he was thrown into prison and died. Coxinga, warned by his father's example, determined to ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... that there were among the boarders in the house two remarkable men, one of whom often petted me as a babe, and took a fancy to me. He was a Swedish Count, who had passed, it was said, a very wild life as pirate for several years on the Spanish Main. He was identified as the Count Bruno of Frederica Bremer's novel, "The Neighbours." The other was the famous philologist, Dufief, author of "Nature Displayed," a work of ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... the air down the river, the first thing that struck us was the ship of that noble pirate, Sir Francis Drake, in which he is said to have surrounded this globe of earth. On the left hand lies Ratcliffe, a considerable suburb: on the opposite shore is fixed a long pole with ram's-horns upon it, the intention of which was vulgarly said ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... even more vividly recounted adventures than those which charmed so many boy readers in 'Pirate Island' and 'Congo Rovers.'...There is a thrilling adventure on the precipices of Mount Everest, when the ship floats off and providentially returns ...
— Robert Coverdale's Struggle - Or, On The Wave Of Success • Horatio, Jr. Alger

... is secluded, and well calculated for concealment, favouring the general opinion that it was the retreat of the famous pirate, Sir Andrew Barton, whose exploits and defeat are so beautifully told in the old ballad of that name in Percy's Reliques. It is surprising that so little should be known of this great and bold man, whose conduct ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... out of my hands'—said H. Yet I thrust it into yours ... so much for the subtle fence of friends who reach your heart by a side-thrust, as I told you on Tuesday, after the enemy has fallen back breathless and baffled. As for the date, that Stockdale was a notorious pirate and raker-up of rash publications ... and, do you know, I suspect the title-page is all that boasts such novelty,—see if the book, the inside leaves, be not older evidently!—a common trick of the 'trade' to this day. The history of this and 'Justrozzi,' as ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... Like Sir LYTTON BULWER, when he girds up his loins to write an apocryphal comedy, we approach our work with graceful solemnity. Like Sir LYTTON, too, we always dress for the particular work we have in hand. Sir LYTTON wrote "Richelieu" in a harlequin's jacket (sticking pirate's pistols in his belt, ere he valorously took whole scenes from a French melo-drama): we penned our last week's essay in a suit of old canonicals, with a tie-wig askew upon our beating temples, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 16, 1841 • Various

... terrible bright eyes. But I was then a wizard and a scholar and a priest; I stood upon the sand; With lifted hand I looked upon them And sunk their vessels with my wizard eyes, And the stately lacquer-gate made safe again. Deep, deep below the bay, the sea-weed and the spray, Embalmed in amber every pirate lies, Embalmed ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... series of National Tragedies. There are four such tragedies in the present portion, commencing with Arixina in which figure Julius Caesar, Cassfelyn, and Cymbaline, and extending to Edwin and Elgiva: the titles of the intervening pieces are the Imperial Pirate and the Dragon King. There is much wild and beautiful romance in the diction, but we take the most attractive portion to be the lyrical portion, as the Chants, Dirges, and Choruses. We recommend them as models for the play-wrights who do such things for the acting drama, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... be supposed, this daring act caused alarm throughout England. Jones was denounced as a freebooter and pirate, and every effort was made to capture him. Had his enemies succeeded, little mercy would have ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis

... Shrewsbury; distinguished himself in an action with a Barbary pirate; rose rapidly to the highest post in the navy; distinguished himself well in an engagement with a French fleet in the W. Indies; he lost a leg, and at this crisis some of his captains proved refractory, so that the enemy escaped, were tried ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... Dark Master had sent messengers to his kin in Donegal, bidding them send aid south; also, he sent to certain pirates north of Sligo Bay. From Sligo to the Erne all that land is desolate, and has been so these six years, and the O'Donnells from Lough Swilly have set up a pirate hold near Millhaven. It was to these that the Dark ...
— Nuala O'Malley • H. Bedford-Jones

... his friend. Presson had faced him at last with protest that stung. "I know it's no kind of talk to use to any one. I'm no ruffian. I'm ashamed to have to use it. But the other kind don't work—not with her. Land-pirate Kavanagh is welcome to the ten thousand acres of timber-land that he stole from me; but when his red-head daughter proposes to steal my grandson, and laugh at me to my face while she's doing it, she'll take what I have to give her if she wants to stay and listen. Look at her, Presson! ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... Advantages. Voyage to the Calebar River. Geographical and Nautical Directions. The Tornadoes. Superstitious Custom of the Natives. Duke Ephraim. Visit to Duke Ephraim. The Priests of Duke Town. Mourning amongst the Natives. Attack of an Alligator. The Thomas taken by a Pirate. Departure from Fernando Po. Death of the Kroomen. Arrival in England. Advantages of the Expedition. Investigation of the Niger. Course of the Niger. Ptolemy's Hypothesis of the Niger. Sources of the African ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... tamely bide at home At beck and call of some proud swollen lord Not worth his biscuit, or at Beauty's feet Sit making sonnets, when was work to do Out yonder, sinking Philip's caravels At sea, and then by way of episode Setting quick torch* to pirate-nests ashore? ...
— Wyndham Towers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... doubling clouds, thou lamp of day, Teach the bold Argonauts their chartless way; Your viewless capes, broad Chesapeak, unfold, And show your promised Colchis fleeced with gold. No plundering squadron your new Jason brings; No pirate demigods nor hordes of kings From shore to shore a faithless miscreant steers, To steal a maid and leave a sire in tears. But yon wise chief conducts with careful ken The queen of colonies, the best of men, To wake to fruitful life your slumbering soil, And rear ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... thrusting them by violence of arms out of their own waters. The King accordingly detached one or two of his vessels under the command of Maxwell, his admiral, to inquire into these high-handed proceedings, with the result that one of the foreign fisher pirate-ships was seized and brought to Leith to answer for their misdoings. There they were reprimanded and bound over to better behaviour, then dismissed without further penalty. How little effectual, however, this treatment was, ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... nor remembering a hundredth part of the rich details. And even the cathedral (though I give it up as indescribable) was nothing at all in comparison with a church to which the commissionaire afterwards led us; a church that had been built four or five hundred years ago, by a pirate, in expiation of his sins, and out of the profit of his rapine. This last edifice, in its interior, absolutely shone with burnished gold, and glowed with pictures; its walls were a quarry of precious stones, so valuable were the marbles out of which they ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... the champion of Greece against her tyrant. He tried to stir up revolts in Thrace and Macedonia. He arranged with Tigranes that an Armenian army should co-operate with him, leaving him the land it occupied, but carrying off the plunder. He gave the word, and a swarm of pirate ships swept the Mediterranean under his colours. He summoned an army of 250,000 foot, 40,000 horse, and 130 scythed chariots, a fleet of 300 decked vessels, and 100 other ships called 'Dicrota' with a double bank of oars. He formed and armed ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley

... having gone away,—I do not know where,—up comes a gondola to the front-door, and, of course, in walks Sarah's husband. "Good evening, Ma'am," says he. "God of Israel!" says she. And then such an explanation as this infamous husband gives! He puts in, that he is a pirate; that his captain, whom he describes as a Venus en corsaire, has lost a son, and wants another; hence speaker, name Arnheim, wants that little Israelite who is so much like Abel and Moses at one and the same moment: though ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... Clytemnestra and the tragedy of Psyttaleia rising to my mind. One of the crew had his little son with him, a child of six years old; and when the boy was restless, his father spoke of Barbarossa and Timberio (sic) to keep him quiet; for the memory of the Moorish pirate and the mighty emperor is still alive here. The people of Capri are as familiar with Tiberius as the Bretons with King Arthur; and the hoof-mark of illustrious crime ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... of this gifted author which is best remembered, and which will be read with pleasure for many years to come, is "Captain Brand," who, as the author states on his title page, was a "pirate of eminence in the West Indies." As a sea story pure and simple, "Captain Brand" has never been excelled, and as a story of piratical life, told without the usual embellishments of blood and thunder, it ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

... Malay chaps are awful cowards," said Adams, continuing the conversation. "You never sees 'em singly, their pirate proas, or junks, allers a sailing with a consort. I ought ter know; 'cause, 'fore I ever jined Cap'en Gillespie, I wer in a Hongkong trader; and many's the time we've been chased by a whole shoal of 'em when going to Singapore or ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... The Saracen pirate who had boarded the galleon from Genoa which was carrying him and his lord to Cyprus, had parted him from Herdegen and Sir Franz, and sold him for a slave in Egypt. There had he gone through many fortunes, till at last, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... lust, in the faith of little children and the courage of old demi-gods, they went like homing pigeons; and not a soul, from him who gave command to him who, far aloft, looked out upon the deep, recked or cared that another age would call him pirate or corsair, raising brow and shoulder over the ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... at hand, slung to their saddles, and ready to be snatched out for desperate defence. But their united numbers render them secure against petty bands of marauders, and the solitary bandolero, armed to the teeth, and mounted on his Andalusian steed, hovers about them, like a pirate about a merchant convoy, without ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various

... belongs to an ordinary human being, the prisoner Du Pont, who has discovered one of Mrs. Radcliffe's innumerable concealed passages. The bed with the black velvet pall in the haunted chamber contains, not the frightful apparition that flashed upon the inward eye of Emily and of Annette, but a stalwart pirate who shrinks from discovery. The gliding forms which steal furtively along the ramparts and disappear at the end of dark passages become eventually, like the nun in Charlotte Bronte's Villette, sensible ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... consideration. But society, incorrigible as ever, will assuredly persist in regarding the married woman as a corvette duly authorized by her flag and papers to go on her own course, while the woman who is a wife in all but name is a pirate and an outlaw for lack of a document. A day came when Mme. de la Garde would fain have signed herself "Mme. Castanier." The cashier was put out ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... that was, Musing visions by that woman raised, Watched that land she came from, towned with ruins Send mile-long files of laden camels out With grain to hostile cities,— Knew too the blue entrancing plain of waters Teemed with fresh shoals, buoyed up indifferently, Fisher—trader—pirate bark,— Even the straight thought whispered at his ear, "Thy lips might join with hers as with some cousin's, Here, now, at noon, Hugging her bereaved sadness close, And still, to-night, with equal satisfaction, Thy mother's blind contentment with her ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... fixed upon the detective's face, as though seeking inspiration for speech from that source. The other man, Backlos, was a tall, hawk-featured man with a sweeping black moustache, who needed only gaudy habiliments to make him the ideal pirate king of the comic opera stage. It ...
— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... me beyond all reasonable doubt. I'm the man they are after, of course. But incidentally, they're going to mulct every other cattle owner in the state. It's a mighty big scheme—a stupendous robbery. The man who conceived it should have been a pirate—he has all ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer

... a young and rather attractive man, and Tikkia such a female pirate, I insist that my failure to suspect a romance is at least partially justified; and certainly never by word or glance did they betray the least interest in each other. But some days after my establishment had begun to run smoothly, one of the military ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee

... jumping upon the taffrail of his craft, as we came abreast the shoal, he yelled, like a Comanche, to my pilot to: "Port the helm!" and what does my mutton-headed jackass do but port hard over! The bark, of course, brought up immediately on the ground, as the other had planned, seeing which his whole pirate crew—they could have been little less than pirates—joined in roars of laughter, but sailed on, doing us ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... identify the localities in Geoffrey of Monmouth, King Arthur sailed as early as the beginning of the sixth century, and overcame whatever inhabitants he may have found there. Here, too, an occasional wandering pirate or adventurous Dane had glimpsed the coast. Thither, among others, came the Irish, and in the ninth century we find Irish monks and a small colony of their countrymen in possession. Thither the Gulf Stream carries the southern driftwood, suggesting ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... self-supporting one, for it was paid by the produce of convoy fees and licenses to trade. It must be confessed that a portion of these revenues savoured much of black-mail to be levied on friend and foe; for the distinctions between, freebooter, privateer, pirate, and legitimate sea-robber were not very closely drawn in those ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... gentleness of our manners scarcely suffers us to conceive, offered rewards by open proclamation to those who should bring in the scalps of Indian women and children. A trader always makes war with the cruelty of a pirate. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... of Como were thus straining every nerve to complete a pious work, which at the same time is one of the most perfect masterpieces of Italian art, their lovely lake was turned into a pirate's stronghold, and its green waves stained with slaughter of conflicting navies. So curious is this episode in the history of the Larian lake that it is worth while to treat of it at some length. Moreover, the lives of few captains ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... professionally at the present day. To the childish Zola, life must have presented itself as a series of human documents. He saw things as they were, not as a small boy should see them. He could have had no genuine longings for a life of piracy, for he saw that the pirate, instead of being a gorgeously-dressed and nobly-chivalrous hero, was only a brutal ruffian travelling on the road to Execution Dock. Tin soldiers could have brought him no happiness, for he knew that they were only lifeless bits of tin, as incapable ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... a window in Dunkirk which looked upon the chief square. In the centre of the square is the statue of Jean-Bart, the famous captain and pirate of the seventeenth century, standing in his sea- boots (as he once strode into the presence of the Sun-King) and with his sword raised above his great plumed hat. I stood in the balcony of the window looking down at the colour and movement of the life below, and thinking at odd moments—the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... an awful lot faster. Why couldn't pirates to-day have steamships, just as fast in comparison to the steamers of to-day as their clippers were to the sailing ships of old? They'd get much bigger hauls. Why, one good hold-up of an Atlantic steamer would make a pirate ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... the moon," said the skipper; and taking Dick by the chin, he cruelly jerked his head into the air. "Blessed Virgin!" he cried, "it is the pirate." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Pirate Smee, was 'a kind of a compliment', but it was also, to quote the same hero, 'galling'; and I have wished for an opportunity of disowning the pretension which I found attributed to me of setting up as a pundit, or ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... German professor of electricity resigned from his institution. He was receiving about $3,000 a year. Many months passed by. One day this man was heard defaming England. "England has destroyed the freedom of the seas. England controls Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. England is the great land pirate. England is the world butcher." A Secret Service man followed the German professor, and found that he was working as fireman at the wireless station of that great city. This German professor of electricity had resigned a $3,000 a year position ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis

... Banda-Sea Pirate. (Luxuriantly tropical. Monthly. Salter than the Sea. Sharper than ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... men, if we may judge from the feats which they performed, from those of these days. One of the best of his histories is that which describes the life of Harald Haardraade, who, after manifold adventures by land and sea, now a pirate, now a mercenary of the Greek emperor, became King of Norway, and eventually perished at the battle of Stanford Bridge, whilst engaged in a gallant onslaught upon England. Now, I have often thought that ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... arose. They were the Saxons, a fierce, sea-faring people from the countries to the North of the Rhine, the great river of Germany on the banks of which the best grapes grow to make the German wine. They began to come, in pirate ships, to the sea-coast of Gaul and Britain, and to plunder them. They were repulsed by CARAUSIUS, a native either of Belgium or of Britain, who was appointed by the Romans to the command, and under whom the Britons first began to fight upon the sea. But, after this time, they renewed their ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens

... voice. The chauffeur adored Henri. His one unbandaged eye stole moments from the road to glance at him. When he spoke, while Henri read his map, his very voice betrayed him. And while she pondered the thing, woman-fashion they drew into the square of Dunkirk, where the statue of Jean Bart, pirate and privateer stared down at this new procession of war which passed daily and nightly ...
— The Amazing Interlude • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... council of captains, seeing his ship was larger than any we possessed and exceeding well armed and manned, overruled me, and the end of it was we sailed, six ships of the Brotherhood and this accursed pirate. ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol

... Nyanza, was probably as near as anywhere, and that German East being our immediate destination anyway, the best course to take was forward, roughly south by west. So I was slung in a blanket on a tent-pole, and we started, I swearing like a pirate every time a boy stumbled and jolted me. (There is something in the nature of a burn that makes bad ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... vessel or coast settlement they thought they had a chance of taking. To keep these pirates in check Carausius was made "Count of the Saxon Shore". It was a case of setting a thief to catch a thief; for Carausius was a Fleming and a bit of a pirate himself. He soon became so strong at sea that he not only kept the other Norsemen off but began to set up as a king on his own account. He seized Boulogne, harried the Roman shipping on the coasts of France, and joined forces with those ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood

... hadn't figured on the special twist the clever Martian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himself suddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in which he could hope to save that cargo and his own secret—that would be by turning space-pirate himself and paying the BRIGANDS OF THE MOON back in their own ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... in which the pirate found the Lady in the C-a-a-bin and slivered off her head, or back to Red Renard, or further to his own campaign song, and furthest of all to the bad, bad young dog of a crow. Then he got quite out of breath, and pausing for a moment to catch it, noted for the first time the extreme bitterness ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris

... sight of the world had if possible brightened and invigorated her. Her costume and bearing were subtly touched by the romance of the Adriatic. There was a flavour of the pirate in the cloak about her shoulders and the light knitted cap of scarlet she had stuck upon her head. She surveyed his preoccupation for a moment, glanced forward, and then covered his eyes with her hands. In almost the same movement she had ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... I am," said Sebastes, "I have been already a pirate five years at sea, and a robber three years now in the hills, and it is the first time I have seen or heard a man hesitate, in such a case, to take the only part which is worth a brave man's while to resort ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... at that!" cried Guy, and Maisie exclaimed, "This is the right place, of course! We've struck it at last! That pirate flag was just to ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells

... magazine. "The Terrible Tentacles of L-472," a good story; "The Invisible Death," a very good story; "Prisoners on the Electron," very good; "The Ape-Men of Xlotli," a good story, but it does not belong in a Science Fiction magazine; "The Pirate Planet," very excellent—much more so because it is an interplanetary story. "Vagabonds of Space," "The Fifth Dimension Catapult," "The Gate of Xoran," "The ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... renounce thee, I defy thee to the teeth; I am none of thine, and henceforth I leave thee in thy low estate." You did not leap in the middle of the night from a three-story window, with your best clothes in a handkerchief, and go and assume the charge of a pirate clipper, which was lying hidden in a creek in the Back Bay. On the contrary, you went to school when the time came. As you have done so, determine, first of all, to make the very best of it. The best can be made first-rate. But a great ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale

... in the minds of many men (and still more women) that bad boys make good men, and that a dash of the pirate, even in a prelate, does not disqualify. But I wish to come to the defense of the Sunday-school story-books and show that their very prominent moral is right after all: ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard

... own or somebody else's. It makes little difference to him. The way he got the Wire-Silver would have made Black-Beard the pirate turn green with envy. Know anything about the history of ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... set out together, and to evade Ichabod, struck off at a run across the fields, Joe pantingly setting forth, in answer to his comrade's questions, how he was going to be a sailor or a pirate, 'or summat,' or to have a desert island like Crusoe. Of course, it was all admirable to both of them, and, of course, it was all a great deal more real than ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... desire to run away to sea. Rather, the smell of the place urges me indeterminately, diffusedly, to truantry. It offers me no particular chart. It but cuts my moorings for whatever winds are blowing. If there be blood of a pirate in me, it is a shame what faded juice it is. It would flow pink on the sticking. In mean contrast to skulls, bowie-knives and other red villainy, my thoughts will be set toward the mild truantry of trudging for an afternoon in the country. Or it is likely that I'll carry stones for ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... went to Florida where the winter of 1831-2 was spent, prosecuting his studies of our birds. His adventures and experiences in Florida, he has embodied in his Floridian Episodes, "The Live Oakers," "Spring Garden," "Deer Hunting," "Sandy Island," "The Wreckers," "The Turtles," "Death of a Pirate," and other sketches. Stopping at Charleston, South Carolina, on this southern trip, he made the acquaintance of the Reverend John Bachman, and a friendship between these two men was formed that lasted as long as they both lived. Subsequently, Audubon's sons, Victor and ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs

... for the change of the monsoon to pass the bay of Bengal. Traversing this vast expanse, they touched at the island of Ceylon and then crossed the strait to the southern part of the great peninsula of India. Thence sailing up the Pirate coast, as it is called, the fleet entered the Persian gulf and arrived at the famous port of Olmuz, where it is presumed the voyage terminated, after eighteen months spent ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... to his aid; but as no funds for their maintenance came with them, they became a burden. The garrison was reduced almost to starvation; and Subercase was forced to replenish his stores by the capture of pirate vessels. The last letter he wrote home was filled with anguish over the impending fate of Port Royal. His despair was not without cause. In the spring of 1710 Queen Anne placed Colonel Francis Nicholson, ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... Vikingsson and the King his master were not daunted. Hither had they come after the pirate, and here it was that he had last been heard of; and they searched along the shore and in the caves, and peered into every hole and cranny, until their eyes grew strained and heavy, but no viking Sote was to ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... that the other spoke the same language. A battle followed, in which Nunda, king of the Fir-Bolgs, was slain; Breas succeeded him; he encountered the hostility of the bards, and was compelled to resign the crown. He went to the court of his father-in-law, Elathe, a Formorian sea-king or pirate; not being well received, he repaired to the camp of Balor of the Evil Eye, a Formorian chief. The Formorian head-quarters seem to have been in the Hebrides. Breas and Balor collected a vast army and navy and invaded Ireland, but were defeated in a ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... rivers of wealth and rich meadow-lands, in which generous youth abide. On land you may hunt tame animals, or you may hunt wild animals. And man is a tame animal, and he may be hunted either by force or persuasion;—either by the pirate, man-stealer, soldier, or by the lawyer, orator, talker. The latter use persuasion, and persuasion is either private or public. Of the private practitioners of the art, some bring gifts to those whom they hunt: these are lovers. And others take hire; and some of these flatter, ...
— Sophist • Plato

... a revised Program. "You are now Fifteen Years of Age," said the Wonderful Guide with the glittering Suit. "It is High Time that you planned a Noble Career, following a Straight Course from which there shall be no Deviation. The Pirate is a mere swaggering Bravo and almost Unscrupulous at times. Why not be a great Military Commander? The Procedure is Simple. Your Father gives the Finger to the Congressman and then you step off the Boat at West Point. Next thing you know, you are wearing a ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade

... Danish legendary story, a time when history fades into fable, it is said there was a Hamlet in Northern Denmark, but it was long before the birth of Christ. His father was not a king, but a famous pirate chief who governed Jutland in conjunction with his brother. Hamlet's father married the daughter of a Danish king, the issue being Hamlet. His uncle, according to the ancient story, murdered Hamlet's father and afterwards married his mother. Herein we have ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... aptly thou forgett'st a tale 70 Thou ne'er didst wish to learn—my brave Osorio Saw them both founder in the storm that parted Him and the pirate: both the vessels founder'd. Gallant Osorio! [Pauses, then tenderly. O belov'd Maria, Would'st thou best prove thy faith to generous Albert 75 And most delight his spirit, go and make His brother happy, make his agd father Sink to the grave ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... the dewy sod, And a voice was in her ear, And an arm embraced young Leila's waist— "Beloved! I am here!" Like the phantom form that rules the storm, Appeared the pirate lover, And his fiery eye was like Zatanai, As he ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... Wallace commanded a small British flotilla in Narraganset bay, during the summer and autumn of 1775. He was really a commissioned pirate, for he burnt and plundered dwellings, and stores, and plantations, wherever he pleased. The fact above alluded to was the plunder and destruction of the houses on the beautiful island of Providence (not the town of Providence) by that marauder, at the close of November, ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson

... automobile load of guards, and the next day at dawn some belated stampeders had seen them climbing up to the dome. There lay the apex of the Tecolote claims, fifteen hundred lateral feet that covered the main body of the lode; and with the instinct of a mine pirate McBain had sought the high ground. If he could hold the Old Juan claim he could cloud the title to all the rich ground on both sides; and at the end of litigation, if he won his suit, all the improvements that might be built below would be of value only to him. Always providing ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge

... against the shearing sword; Then sprung the mother on the brand with which her son was gored; Then sunk the grandsire on the floor, his grand-babes clutching wild; Then fled the maiden moaning faint, and nestled with the child; But see, yon pirate strangled lies, and crushed with splashing heel, While o'er him in an Irish hand there sweeps his Syrian steel— Though virtue sink, and courage fail, and misers yield their store, There's one hearth well avenged in ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis



Words linked to "Pirate" :   teach, Edward Teach, plunderer, looter, offence, spoiler, skyjack, piratical, Sir Henry Morgan, sea king, freebooter, Blackbeard, thief, piracy, sea rover, Laffite, Jean Laffite, Roberts, seize, raider, Lafitte, despoiler, Edward Thatch, Henry Morgan, pillager, steal, stealer, thatch, Morgan, criminal offence, carjack, corsair, crime, offense, Bartholomew Roberts, Jean Lafitte, criminal offense, ship, law-breaking



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