privateer

After surviving some of the war’s most consequential battles, Greenwood goes home and then he becomes a privateer, Ward says.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 12, 2025

Ecclestone, a former second-hand car dealer, recognised a kindred spirit and was a kind of guardian angel at times as Jordan navigated the choppy waters of being a privateer team owner.

From BBC ● Mar. 20, 2025

His father, Jan Jansen, a Dutch privateer, was captured by one of the Moorish states in 1618.

From New York Times ● Dec. 3, 2019

The San Juan Bautista, a Spanish ship transporting enslaved Africans, was bound for Mexico when it was attacked by the White Lion and another privateer, the Treasurer, and forced to surrender its African prisoners.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 14, 2019

As a youth, he claimed, he had served as a privateer, after which he was captured and enslaved by the Turks.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

These are licenses for private parties, known as privateers, to capture prizes at sea.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

In theory, pirates plunder and pillage outside the law, while corsairs were privateers regulated by authorities.

From National Geographic ● Jan. 11, 2024

The privateers were sponsored by the state, and set a ransom of 500 Guineas for Capt Lambton who was sailing The Stephenson from Bristol to Newcastle at the time.

From BBC ● May 17, 2023

She theorizes that fake dollars could be passed to privateers trading on the black market.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2016

“Because,” Collins growled, “he sailed on privateers before he was knee high to a capstan. He knows guns. If we have trouble with the French he’ll be worth the rest of the crew put together.”

From "Carry On, Mr. Bowditch" by Jean Lee Latham

Authorization of privateering would allow the capture of Iranian vessels now being turned back or disabled.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026

All of this sounds very nice and would no doubt be an improvement from the privateering corporate status quo.

From Slate ● May 9, 2024

The Protestant queen wanted colonies that would act as an ideological counterweight to Spanish Catholicism in the Americas and provide a base of operations for privateering expeditions that would raid Spanish shipping.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

But secession slashed tariff receipts by eliminating busy Southern ports and by launching a fleet of Confederate privateering vessels on the seas.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 1, 2022

In 1619, the first Africans arrived in the Virginia colony on a privateering ship.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone