piratical

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Hunt is depicted in fin-de-siècle vest and suit jacket, his debonair mustache giving him a sophisticated, almost piratical air.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 8, 2026

When he returned, he had a piratical grin and a glint in his eyes.

From Washington Post • Aug. 18, 2022

A piratical pastor in a boxcar and two rich, tuxedoed drunks on the same train are like admonitory bookends on the subjects of class and self-determination.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 24, 2021

“Blue & Lonesome,” their new album, arrived as a happy accident — or, as Keith Richards said with his piratical cackle, “as if we’d been ordered to do it from some higher being.”

From New York Times • Nov. 9, 2016

By the term "piratical" is meant the printing, reprinting, publishing, copying, or reproducing without authority of the copyright proprietor of any article legally copyrighted and on which the copyright is still in force.

From Copyright: Its History and Its Law by Bowker, Richard Rogers