Image: Wikimedia Commons

privateer

Private person or ship authorized by a government to attack foreign shipping

Conceptprofession maritime occupation ambiguous Wikidata itemQ201559

Also known as corsair

Instance of: profession
, maritime occupation
, ambiguous Wikidata item
Subclass of: warrior
, sailor
, irregular military

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

A privateer is a private person or vessel which engages in commerce raiding under a commission of war. Since piracy was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or delegated authority issued commissions, also referred to as letters of marque, during wartime. The commission empowered the holder to carry on all forms of hostility permissible at sea by the usages of war. This included attacking foreign vessels and taking them as prizes and taking crews prisoner for exchange. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, with the proceeds divided by percentage between the privateer's sponsors, shipowners, captains and crew. A percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission. Most colonial powers, as well as other countries, engaged in privateering.

Overview

All data

56 statements · 18% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Field of this occupation: commerce raiding
privateering
Female form of label: corsaire
פריבטירית
Korsarin
corsària
corsaria
قرصانة رسمية
corsara
gusarka
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منوارة
Different from: Corsario
privatier applies to name of subject: privateer · applies to name of object: privatier
Male form of label: قرصان رسمي
corsar
Depicted by: Old Corsair called Alì Meliocco

On other databases

32 identifiers linking privateer across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

18%

externally sourced

Source last edited July 8, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). privateer (Q201559). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/privateer-Q201559