Meaning & use

corsair

noun·Advanced

A pirate or privateer, especially one who historically operated along the Barbary Coast of North Africa.

See it in a sentence

The novel follows a daring corsair who raided merchant ships along the coast.

Museums display cutlasses and flags once carried by corsairs centuries ago.

A note on using this word

Corsair is a somewhat literary or historical term, less common in everyday speech than "pirate."

Words with a similar meaning

pirateprivateer

Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.

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