Glossary
The Cant
A sourced glossary of the specialised vocabulary used in the codex — the cant of pirates, privateers, corsairs, and the institutional machinery that contested and codified them. 39 entries to date.
“Cant” is the period-correct English word for the specialised jargon of a trade or marginal community. Charles Johnson’s 1724 General History of the Pyrates uses it specifically of pirate speech, and this page takes its title from that usage. The entries below cover three kinds of vocabulary: the terms by which pirates and their contemporaries described themselves and their work (buccaneer, freebooter, corsair); the legal and institutional vocabulary within which they operated (letter of marque, prize court, articles, king’s pardon); and the material vocabulary of the work itself (sloop, careening, doubloon, piece of eight).
Each card shows the term and a one-line gloss; click through for the full definition, etymology, cross-references, and links to the pirate entries where the term applies. The alphabet bar above jumps directly to a letter.
A
B
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Black flag
The distinguishing emblem flown by Golden Age pirates to identify themselves to a target vessel.
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Boucan
The wooden frame on which the cattle-hunters of the western Hispaniola interior smoked beef and pork in the first half of the seventeenth century.
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Brethren of the Coast
A loose self-designation of the seventeenth-century Caribbean buccaneers operating from Tortuga, Port Royal, and the western Hispaniolan coast against Spanish shipping and shore settlements.
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Buccaneer
An anti-Spanish raider of the seventeenth-century Caribbean, originally a cattle-hunter on the western Hispaniolan coast and later a freelance mariner operating against Spanish shipping and shore towns.
C
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Cant
The specialised jargon or argot of a particular trade, profession, or marginal community.
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Careening
Beaching a wooden vessel and laying her on her side to scrape, clean, and re-tar the hull.
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Corsair
The Mediterranean term for a commissioned irregular naval combatant operating against the shipping of religiously opposed states.
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Cutting out
The capture of a vessel at anchor by boarding from small boats, typically at night, rather than by ship-to-ship engagement on open water.
D
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Dastak
A formal pass issued by an Indian state authority — in Konkan-coast usage, by the Maratha admiral Kanhoji Angre and his successors — permitting a named vessel to pass through the issuer’s waters unmolested.
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Doubloon
The Spanish gold coin of two escudos in its original 16th-century usage, and of eight escudos (approximately 27 grams of gold, about 22-carat fineness) in its later 17th and 18th-century usage.
F
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Filibuster
In its seventeenth-century usage, a French-speaking buccaneer of the Caribbean — especially one operating from Tortuga or the western Hispaniola coast.
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Flota
The Spanish annual convoy system, in operation from 1566 to 1790, that carried the bullion of Peru and New Spain across the Atlantic to Seville.
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Freebooter
A generic English term for an irregular maritime raider operating without state commission or outside the bounds of a commission.
G
H
J
K
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Kapudan Pasha
The Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet, a senior officer of state with responsibilities ranging from the administration of the imperial dockyards at the Golden Horn to operational command of the Ottoman Mediterranean fleet in time of war.
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King's pardon
A formal proclamation by the English Crown offering full pardon to any pirate who surrendered to a colonial authority by a stated date and undertook to abandon piracy.
L
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Letter of marque
A formal commission issued by a state, in time of war, authorising a private vessel to attack the shipping of a named enemy state and to keep a share of the resulting prizes after condemnation by an admiralty or prize court.
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Likedeeler
The successor fraternity to the Victualbrüder, organised around 1398 under an arrangement that divided prize cargoes equally among the entire crew rather than along conventional hierarchical shares.
M
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Maroon
To abandon a person on a remote island or stretch of unsettled shore, usually with minimal supplies, as a form of punishment short of execution.
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Moidore
The Portuguese gold coin of four thousand reis (face value; effectively valued at four thousand eight hundred reis from 1688), in circulation from approximately 1640 until the early nineteenth century.
P
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Piece of eight
The Spanish silver coin of eight reals (hence the name), in circulation from 1497 to the mid-nineteenth century and the dominant international currency of the Atlantic and Pacific trade economies for most of that period.
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Pirate
In international law, a person who commits an act of armed robbery, depredation, or violence on the high seas (or in a place beyond the territorial jurisdiction of any state) for private ends, without authorisation from any state.
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Plead the belly
The medieval English common-law principle that a pregnant woman could not be executed until after the birth of her child.
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Privateer
A privately-owned, armed vessel operating under a state-issued letter of marque against the shipping of a named enemy state.
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Prize
A vessel captured at sea by an armed combatant (naval, privateer, or pirate).
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Prize court
The court that adjudicated the legality of a privateer prize and condemned it for sale.
Q
R
S
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Sarkhel
The Maratha title for the senior naval commander of the empire, equivalent to Admiral in European usage.
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Sloop
A single-masted, fore-and-aft-rigged sailing vessel of relatively shallow draught, typically of fifty to a hundred tons displacement and mounting six to twelve guns.
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Spanish Main
The contemporary English term for the South American Caribbean coast that ran from the mouth of the Orinoco west to the Isthmus of Panama, and northward across the Caribbean to include the Caribbean coast of Mexico.
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Striking colours
Lowering a vessel’s ensign as the conventional signal of surrender.
T
V
W
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Walking the plank
The legendary pirate execution method of forcing a victim to walk blindfolded along a plank extended over the side of the ship until they fell into the sea.
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Wokou
Coastal raiders who operated against the China coast, the Korean peninsula, and parts of Southeast Asia from approximately the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries.
