Politics & SocietyGreek → English
Pirate
/ˈpaɪrət/noun
A person who attacks and robs ships at sea.
The Greek roots
πειρατής
peiratḗs
raider, attacker
Literally: “one who tries his luck against you”
Follow a root:πειρατής1 word
The story of the word
The root is πεῖρα, an attempt or trial, so a πειρατής is somebody who has a go at you, a raider by sea. The same root gives empirical, knowledge obtained by trying things and seeing what happens. Latin pirata reached English about 1300, and by around 1700 English writers were using the word for booksellers who reprinted other men's books without leave, which is where software piracy eventually came from.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- c. 1300
Same family
piracyempiricalempiricism
In a sentence
Pirates worked the strait for two centuries and the maps still show their inlets.
The film leaked and was pirated within a day.