Pirate Glossary
Terms
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- Starboard
- The right side of the ship when you are facing toward her prow.
- Rum (noun)
- Traditional pirate drink.
- Corsair
- A more romantic term for pirate. But still a pirate.
- Wench
- An individual of the female persuasion. "Saucy" is a good adjective to add to this, and if ye can get away with "Me proud beauty!," more power to ye.
- Swag
- Loot.
- Belay
- Stop that. "Belay that talk!" would mean "Shut up!"
- Cat o'nine tails
- or just "cat", a whip with many lashes, used for flogging. "A taste of the cat" might refer to a full flogging, or just a single blow to "smarten up" a recalcitrant hand.
- Flogging
- Punishment by caning, or by whipping with the cat.
- Beauty
- The best possible pirate address for a woman. Always preceded by "me," as in, "C'mere, me beauty," or even, "me buxom beauty," to one particularly well endowed. You'll be surprised how effective this is.
- Jack Tar
- A sailor.
- Chase
- The ship being pursued. "The chase is making full sail, sir" = "The ship we're after is going as fast as she can."
- Aft
- Short for "after." Toward the rear of the ship.
- Bilge-sucking
- A very uncomplimentary adjective.
- Hornpipe
- Both a single-reeded musical instrument sailors often had aboard ship, and a spirited dance that sailors do.
- Addled
- Mad, insane, or just stupid. An "addlepate" is a fool.
- Kiss the gunner's daughter
- A punishment: to be bent over one of the ship's guns and flogged.
- Grub
- Food.
- Fair winds!
- Goodbye, good luck!.
- Belaying pin
- A short wooden rod to which a ship's rigging is secured. A common improvised weapon aboard a sailing ship, because they're everywhere, they're easily picked up, and they are the right size and weight to be used as clubs.
- Poxy, Poxed
- Diseased. Used as an insult.
- Ahoy!
- "Hello!"
- Handsomely
- Quickly. "Handsomely now, men!" = "Hurry up!"
- Bosun
- Boatswain; a petty officer.
- Shipshape
- Well-organized, under control, finished.
- Jack Ketch
- The hangman. To dance with Jack Ketch is to hang.
- Booty
- Loot.
- Jollyboat
- A small but happy craft, perhaps even one which is a little dinghy.
- Shanty
- Another spelling for "chantey", a sea song.
- On the Account
- The piratical life. A man who went "on the account" was turning pirate.
- Swab (noun)
- A disrespectful term for a seaman. "Man that gun, ye cowardly swabs!"
- Arrr!
- This one is often confused with arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin. "Arrr!" can mean, variously, "yes," "I agree," "I'm happy," "I'm enjoying this beer," "My team is going to win it all," "I saw that television show, it sucked!" and "That was a clever remark you or I just made."
- Buccaneer
- A general term for the Caribbean pirates.
- Privateer
- A ship bearing letters of marque (q.v.), or one of her crew, or her captain. Thus, she can only attack an enemy ship, and only in time of war, but does so as a representative of her country. A privateer is theoretically a law-abiding combatant, and entitled to be treated as an honorable prisoner if captured.
- Chandler
- or ship-chandler, see Sutler.
- Cutlass
- A curved sword, like a saber but heavier. Traditional pirate weapon. Has only one cutting edge; may or may not have a useful point.
- Port
- (1) A seaport. (2) The left side of the ship when you are facing toward her prow.
- Bilge!
- Nonsense, or foolish talk. The bilges of a ship are the lowest parts, inside the hull along the keel. They fill with stinking bilgewater, or just "bilge."
- Maroon
- A fairly common punishment for violation of a pirate ship's articles, or offending her crew. The victim was left on a deserted coast (or, of course, an island) with little in the way of supplies. That way, no one could say that the unlucky pirate had actually been killed by his former brethren.
- Bilge rat
- The bilge is the lowest level of the ship. It's loaded with ballast and slimy, reeking water. A bilge rat, then, is a rat that lives in the worst place on the ship.
- No quarter!
- Surrender will not be accepted.
- Scuppers
- Openings along the edges of a ship's deck that allow water on deck to drain back to the sea rather than collecting in the bilges. "Scupper that!" is an expression of anger or derision: "Throw that overboard!"
- Blaggard
- "Blackguard." An insult.
- Lubber or Land Lubber
- This is the seaman's version of land lover, mangled by typical pirate disregard for elocution. A lubber is someone who does not go to sea, who stays on the land;. This is usually an insult.
- Pirate
- A seagoing robber and murderer. Contrast with privateer.
- Rum (adjective)
- Strange or odd. A "rum fellow" is a peculiar person, the sort who won't say "Arrrr!" on Talk Like A Pirate Day.
- Gangway!
- "Get out of my way!"
- Davy Jones' Locker
- The bottom of the sea.
- Sink me!
- An expression of surprise.
- Scurvy
- (1) A deficiency disease which often afflicted sailors; it was caused by lack of vitamin C. (2) A derogatory adjective suitable for use in a loud voice, as in "Ye scurvy dogs!"
- Me hearties
- Typical way for a pirate leader to address his crew.
- Avast!
- Stop and give attention. It can be used in a sense of surprise, "Whoa! Get a load of that!" which today makes it more of a "Check it out" or "No way!" or "Get off!"
- Letters of Marque
- Papers issued by a national government during wartime, entitling a privately owned ship to raid enemy commerce, or even attack enemy warships. Early letters of reprisal were issued to merchants to make it legal for them to counter-raid pirates! A ship bearing such letters, and operating within their limits, is a privateer rather than a pirate . . . that is, a legal combatant rather than a criminal and murderer. The problem is that letters of marque aren't always honored, even by the government that issued them. Captain Kidd had letters of marque; his own country hanged him anyway.
- Matey
- A piratical way to address someone in a cheerful, if not necessarily friendly, fashion.
- Shiver me timbers!
- An expression of surprise or strong emotion.
- Chantey
- A sailor's work song. Also spelled "shantey" or "shanty."
- Pillage
- To raid, rob, and sack a target ashore.
- Dead men tell no tales
- Standard pirate excuse for leaving no survivors.
- Grog
- An alcoholic drink, usually rum diluted with water, but in this context you could use it to refer to any alcoholic beverage other than beer, and we aren't prepared to be picky about that, either. Water aboard ship was stored for long periods in slimy wooden barrels, so you can see why rum was added to each sailor's water ration, to kill the rancid taste.
- Lights
- Lungs. A pirate might threaten to "have someone's lights and liver."
- Smartly
- Do something quickly.
- Bucko
- Familiar term. "Me bucko" = "my friend."
- Dog
- A mild insult, perhaps even a friendly one.
- Jolly Roger
- The pirates' skull-and-crossbones flag. It was an invitation to surrender, with the implication that those who surrendered would be treated well. A red flag indicated "no quarter."
- Swab (verb)
- To clean something. Being put to "swabbing the decks" would be a low-level punishment for a disobedient pirate.
- Reef
- (1) An underwater obstruction of rock or coral which can tear the bottom out of a ship. (2) To reef sails is to shorten them, tying them partially up, either to slow the ship or to keep a strong wind from putting too much strain on the masts.
- Chest
- Traditional treasure container.
- Rope's end
- another term for flogging. "Ye'll meet the rope's end for that, me bucko!"
- Sail ho!
- "I see a ship!" The sail, of course, is the first part of a ship visible over the horizon.
- Keelhaul
- Punishment by dragging under the ship, from one side to the other. The victim of a keelhauling would be half-drowned, or worse, and lacerated by the barnacles that grew beneath the ship.
- Walk the plank
- A piratical execution. The victim, usually blindfolded or with bound hands or both, is forced to walk along a plank laid over the ship's side, to fall into the water below. Except this seems to be a total invention; it first appeared in 19th-century fiction, long after the great days of piracy.
- Doubloon
- A Spanish gold coin. At different times, it was worth either 4 or 16 silver pesos, or "pieces of eight."
- Godspeed!
- Goodbye, good luck!
- Aye!
- "Why yes, I agree most heartily with everything you just said or did."
- Aye aye!
- "I'll get right on that sir, as soon as my break is over."
- Lad, Lass, Lassie
- A way to address someone younger than you.
- Spyglass
- A telescope.
- Poop deck
- The highest deck at the aft end of a large ship. Smaller ships don't have a poop; the highest part aft is the quarterdeck.
- Blimey!
- An exclamation of surprise.
- Black Spot
- To "place the Black Spot" on another pirate is to sentence him to death, to warn him he is marked for death, or sometimes just to accuse him of a serious crime before other pirates.
- Line
- A rope in use as part of the ship's rigging, or as a towing line. When a rope is just coiled up on deck, not yet being used for anything, it's all right to call it a rope.
- Sutler
- A merchant in port, selling the various things that a ship needed for supplies and repairs.
- Sea dog
- An experienced seaman.
- Me
- A piratical way to say "my."
- Yo-ho-ho
- A very piratical thing to say, whether it actually means anything or not.
- Feed the fish
- What you do when you are thrown into the sea, dead or alive.
- Bowsprit
- The slanted spar at a ship's prow.
- Brethren of the Coast
- The Caribbean buccaneers called themselves by this name in the 1640-1680 period. During this time, they actually formed a sort of fraternity, and did not (usually) fight each other or even steal from each other. After 1680, a new generation of pirates appeared, who did not trust each other . . . with good reason.
- Crow's nest
- A small platform, sometimes enclosed, near the top of a mast, where a lookout could have a better view when watching for sails or for land.
- Piece of eight
- A Spanish silver coin worth one peso or 8 reales. It was sometimes literally cut into eight pieces, each worth one real.
- Begad!
- By God!
- Cap'n
- Short for "captain."
- Salt or Old Salt
- An experienced seaman.
- Weigh anchor
- To haul the anchor up; more generally, to leave port.
- Prow
- The "nose" of the ship.
- Deadlights
- Eyes. "Use yer deadlights, matey!"
- Shark bait
- (1) Your foes, who are about to feed the fish (q.v.). (2) A worthless or lazy sailor; a lubber who is no use aboard ship.
- Ye
- A piratical way to say "you" or "your"
- Bung hole
- Victuals on a ship were stored in wooden casks. The stopper in the barrel is called the bung, and the hole is called the bung hole. That's all. It sounds a lot worse, doesn't it?
- Fore
- or forrard, Toward the front end of the ship.
- Hands
- The crew of a ship; sailors.