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Barbary

Barbary

4 9.9
A region in North Africa on the Mediterranean coast where pirates attacked ships from the 1500s to the 1800s
  • proper noun
  • /ˈbɑːrbəri/
translation icon : Barbary
  • He's the last of the Barbary pirates.
  • Barbary pirates
  • Barbary Coast
  • Barbary captivity

Examples

  • The Barbary pirates' activities declined during the middle decades of the eighteenth century.

    Academic text (2003)
  • Historians often discuss the impact of the Barbary pirates on trade in the Mediterranean during the early modern period.

  • You can reach me at the Barbary Coast Club.

  • Have you heard, perhaps, of the Barbary coast?

  • Nobody in Barbary Coast has ever heard anything like it before.

  • I think I'll buy the Barbary Coast Hotel.

  • I heard you've been fighting pirates off the Barbary Coast.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • On the other hand, Sudan, without fanfare, has become for terrorists what the Barbary Coast was for pirates of another age: a safe haven.

    Academic text (1996)
  • Attacks by marauding Barbary pirates and the Ottoman Empire harassed Spanish shipping and trade in the Mediterranean and North Africa.

    Academic text (2004)
  • Marine Lieutenant Presley O'Banion defeated the Barbary pirates... on the shores of Tripoli in 1805.

Synonyms

Barbary Coast
vsBarbary
8.6

A region of North Africa along the Mediterranean known for pirates from the 1600s to 1800s

is the single-word main historical name for the same region
Berbery
vsBarbary
  • Literature
9.9

A region of North Africa along the Mediterranean coast used by pirates from the 1600s to 1800s

is the preferred modern form of that historical name
Berber Coast
vsBarbary
8.0

A coastal region on the Mediterranean Sea in North Africa historically known for pirates

is broader, covering the whole northern stretch from Egypt to Gibraltar

Compounds

1 8.9

A monkey without a tail that lives on rocky cliffs and in forests of northwest Africa and Gibraltar

A pirate from the North African coast who attacks ships and coastal towns

A region of North Africa along the Mediterranean known for pirates from the 1600s to 1800s

8.7

A city waterfront known for gambling, drinking, and crime in the late 1800s

9.1

A wild sheep from North Africa with a reddish-brown coat and curved horns that lives on rocky slopes

Surface Forms

Barbary main

Etymology

Barbary comes from the name of the local people, the Berber people, so it originally meant 'land of the Berbers' along North Africa's Mediterranean coast. That's why Barbary refers to that historic region that European sailors often feared because of pirates and raids.