Word Finder - piracies

definition

Robbery at sea, a violation of international law; taking a ship away from the control of those who are legally entitled to it.

example

How should the international community respond to Somali piracy?

synonyms

• pirateship

definition

A similar violation of international law, such as hijacking of an aircraft.

definition

The unauthorized duplication of goods protected by intellectual property law.

example

Some video game consoles use specially designed cartridges to make software piracy more difficult.

definition

The operation of an unlicensed radio or television station.

definition

Kleptoparasitism.

There were British, Roman and Saxon settlements at Dunster (Torre Dunestorre, Dunester), fortified against the piracies of the Irish Northmen.

The engravings which these volumes contain are mostly bad copies, often of bad figures, though many are piracies from Bewick, and the whole is a most unsatisfactory performance.

Torgud was now summoned to Constantinople to answer for piracies committed on the friendly galleys of Venice; but he sailed instead to Morocco, and there for two years defied the sultan's authority.

The piracies committed by the Jawasimi Arabs in the gulf compelled the intervention of England, and in 1810 their strongholds were destroyed by a British-Indian expedition.

Occasionally acts of chastisement, of which the bombardment of Porto Farina by Blake in 1655 was the most notable, and repeated treaties, extorted by European powers, checked from time to time, but did not put an end to, the habitual piracies, on which indeed the public revenue of Tunis was mainly dependent.

Through his generals Ardoburius and Aspar he waged two fairly successful wars against the Persians (421 and 441), and after the failure of one expedition (431) by means of a gigantic fleet put an end to the piracies of the Vandal Genseric. A Hunnish invasion in 408 was skilfully repelled, but from 441 the Balkan country was repeatedly overrun by the armies of Attila, whose incursions Theodosius feebly attempted to buy off with everincreasing payments of tribute.

The progress of these African Mussulmans into Spain and their incessant piracies in Italy were perhaps the occasional cause that determined Urban II.

His great undertaking was carried on under continual difficulties, arising from strikes among his workmen, the piracies of rivals, and the interruptions of war.

Historians of the north have distinguished as the " Viking Age " (Vikingertiden) the time when the Scandinavian folk first by their widespread piracies brought themselves forcibly into the notice of all the Christian peoples of western Europe.

In 1616 the Dutch began to compete with the English at Surat, and their piracies against native vessels led to the Mogul governor seizing English warehouses; but soon the native authorities learnt to discriminate between the different European nations, and the unscrupulous methods of the Dutch cast them into disfavour.

During the 14th and 15th centuries there was a regular trade with Bordeaux and Brittany, and complaints of piracies by Dartmouth men were frequent.

The Esthonians first appear in history as a warlike and predatory race, the terror of the Baltic seamen in consequence of their piracies.

In the beginning of the 14th century it was notorious for its piracies.

At various times France, Denmark, Austria and Great Britain all had more or less shadowy rights to the islands, the Danes being the most persistent in their efforts to occupy the group, until in 1869 they relinquished their claims in favour of the British, who at once began to put down the piracies of the islanders, and established a penal settlement, numbering in all about 350 persons, in Nancowry harbour.

Algiers renewed its piracies and slave-taking, though on a smaller scale, and the measures to be taken with it were discussed at the conference or congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818.