privateer
4
9.8
- noun
- /ˌpraɪvəˈtɪr/
- Archaic
:
corsario
- During the war, many men became privateers, sailing under government authority to capture enemy vessels.
- French privateers
Examples
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In the sixteenth century, English privateers such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir John Hawkins justified their attacks on Spanish shipping vessels by claiming they were fighting for the Crown.
Academic text (2009) -
Several British privateers operated out of Frederica during the 1739-48 war, capturing ships trading with either the French or Spanish.
Academic text (2011) -
Around here they think I am a privateer.
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"Commission as a privateer on behalf of England and the East India Trading Company."
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In 1748, the Board of Trade in London received a protest from privateer William Thompson.
Academic text (2011) -
Governments also began to hire privateers to root out pirates.
Academic text (2009) -
French privateers struck again a year later, capturing the Spy and carrying the vessel to Port-au-Prince in Haiti.
Academic text (2007) -
In the late sixteenth century, for example, a group of Dutch privateers known as the Sea Beggars helped liberate the Netherlands from Spanish rule.
Academic text (2009) -
Before countries began to develop standing navies, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the primary way to wage a war at sea was to hand out "letters of marque and reprisal," authorizing privateers to attack enemy ships.
Academic text (2009) -
The king issued letters of marquee to allow local sailors to become privateers and attack foreign ships.
Synonyms
A sailor on a privately owned warship who attacks enemy merchant ships for money
A sailor who attacks and steals from other ships, often in past wars
How Lawless
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Privateer comes from private ('not public') and the ending -er ('person who does something'), so it named a sailor or officer who, with a government 'letter', was allowed to attack enemy ships for private profit.