PRIVATEER (privateer)

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: privateer   

 Dictionary entry overview: What does privateer mean? 

• PRIVATEER (noun)
  The noun PRIVATEER has 2 senses:

1. an officer or crew member of a privateer

2. a privately owned warship commissioned to prey on the commercial shipping or warships of an enemy nation

  Familiarity information: PRIVATEER used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PRIVATEER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An officer or crew member of a privateer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

privateer; privateersman

Hypernyms ("privateer" is a kind of...):

crew member; crewman (a member of a flight crew)

officer; ship's officer (a person authorized to serve in a position of authority on a vessel)

Instance hyponyms:

Hawkins; Hawkyns; Sir John Hawkins; Sir John Hawkyns (English privateer involved in the slave trade; later helped build the fleet that in 1588 defeated the Spanish Armada (1532-1595))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A privately owned warship commissioned to prey on the commercial shipping or warships of an enemy nation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("privateer" is a kind of...):

combat ship; war vessel; warship (a government ship that is available for waging war)

 Context examples 

I have had to chase and capture his privateers, and to cut them out when they run under his batteries.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I knew that we should either go to the bottom together, or that she would be the making of me; and I never had two days of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her; and after taking privateers enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck in my passage home the next autumn, to fall in with the very French frigate I wanted.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Still Mrs. Norris was at intervals urging something different; and in the most interesting moment of his passage to England, when the alarm of a French privateer was at the height, she burst through his recital with the proposal of soup.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I had but to walk up to Wolstonbury in the war time to see the sails of the French chasse-marées and privateers.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There’s Walker, of the Rose cutter, who, with thirteen men, engaged three French privateers with crews of a hundred and forty-six.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)