pirate

French, noun

pirate is spelled P-I-R-A-T-E (6 letters) and appears 8.7 times per million words in written French, the 7,421st most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Pirate is a French feminine noun meaning “pirate” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). With an accent, piraté is a different word: “past participle of pirater”. The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Tout homme qui s’enrichit malhonnêtement et aux dépens d’autrui, qui commet des exactions criantes”.

What does pirate mean in English?

noun

1
femininemasculinepirate

verb

as piraté

1
past participle of pirater

Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

How French dictionaries define it

noun: 1. Aventurier qui se livre au brigandage sur mer, membre d’un équipage qui attaque et pille les navires marchands. 2. Tout homme qui s’enrichit malhonnêtement et aux dépens d’autrui, qui commet des exactions criantes. 3. Enfant turbulent. 4. Personne qui contourne ou détruit les protections d’un logiciel, d’un ordinateur ou d’un réseau informatique, fouineur ^([1]).

adjective: 1. Relatif aux pirates. 2. Hors-la-loi, illégal. 3. Sauvage, sans autorisation officielle. 4. Plagiaire, tenant du copillage, en violation des lois protégeant la propriété artistique ou intellectuelle.

The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.

Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.

Forms of pirate

pirates plural
piratée feminine
piratés masculine plural
piratées feminine plural
piratesse feminine

Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).

English words that translate to pirate

Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.

How common is pirate in French?

pirate appears 8.7 times per million words in written French.

pirate0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Frenchmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).