Pirate Phrases and What They Mean

Greetings and everyday talk

Ahoy

Hello. A genuine sailors' hail, used to call across water.

Ahoy, matey

Hello, friend. The all-purpose opener for the whole day.

Avast ye

Stop, or listen up. From the Dutch "houd vast", hold fast.

Aye

Yes.

Aye aye, Cap'n

Yes, I understand and I will do it. Still used in real navies.

Nay

No.

Arrr

Agreement, enthusiasm, menace or filler, depending on the eyebrows.

Yo ho ho

A cheerful noise, popularised by the song in Treasure Island.

Me hearties

My friends, my crew. Address a room with it.

Savvy?

Understood? Popularised by a certain film captain.

Ye / yer

You / your. The fastest way to sound piratical in text.

Be

Is, am, are. "The treasure be here."

Orders on deck

All hands on deck

Everyone, come and help, now.

Weigh anchor

Lift the anchor; we are leaving.

Hoist the colours

Raise the flag. The pirate flag, specifically.

Batten down the hatches

Secure everything, bad weather is coming.

Heave ho

Pull together, on the count.

Hard to starboard / hard to port

Turn sharply right / left.

Land ho!

Land sighted. Shouted from the crow's nest.

Man the guns

Get to the cannons.

Show a leg

Wake up and get out of your hammock.

Pipe down

Be quiet. Originally the bosun's whistle signalling lights out.

Abandon ship

Everyone off, it is sinking.

Splice the mainbrace

Issue the crew a drink. The best order there is.

Insults and threats

Landlubber

Someone who has never been to sea. Mild, affectionate.

Scallywag

A rascal. Also mild.

Bilge rat

A low creature from the dirtiest part of the ship.

Scurvy dog

A worthless person, in poor health and worse character.

Son of a biscuit eater

The family-friendly insult. Ship's biscuit was the worst food aboard.

Walk the plank

Be forced off the ship into the sea. Far rarer in history than in films.

Dance the hempen jig

Be hanged. Hemp is what the rope was made of.

Feed the fish

Be thrown overboard.

Blow me down

An exclamation of surprise, or a mild threat.

Keelhaul

Drag someone under the ship. A real, brutal punishment.

Exclamations

Shiver me timbers

Good grief. The ship's timbers shaking with shock.

Blimey

Wow. English slang, adopted by pirates on film.

Sink me!

Well I never.

By Blackbeard's beard!

Swearing on the most famous pirate of them all.

Thar she blows!

Something sighted. Really a whaler's cry, borrowed wholesale.

Dead men tell no tales

Leave no witnesses. A real saying, and a famous ride.

Yo ho, yo ho

A pirate's life for me. You know the rest.

Ship and sea words

Jolly Roger

The skull-and-crossbones flag. Origin of the name still argued about.

Crow's nest

The lookout platform at the top of the mast.

Poop deck

The raised deck at the stern. Nothing to do with what you think.

Davy Jones' locker

The bottom of the sea; the grave of drowned sailors.

Fathom

Six feet of depth. Also, to understand something.

Three sheets to the wind

Very drunk. Sheets are the ropes that control sails.

Loose cannon

An unpredictable person. A loose gun on a rolling deck killed people.

Cut and run

Leave in a hurry, cutting the anchor cable rather than raising it.

Give a wide berth

Keep well clear.

Know the ropes

Be experienced. A sailing ship had miles of them.

Between the devil and the deep blue sea

Stuck between two bad options. The devil was a seam on the hull.

Marooned

Left behind on an island as punishment.

Careen

Beach a ship on its side to clean the hull. Where pirates were most vulnerable.

Parley

A truce to talk. A real term, with a real pirate-code history.

Letter of marque

A government licence to attack enemy ships. The line between privateer and pirate.

Treasure, food and drink

Booty

Loot, plunder, treasure.

Doubloon

A Spanish gold coin. The one in every treasure chest.

Pieces of eight

Spanish silver dollars, cut into eight to make change.

Grog

Rum diluted with water, the Royal Navy's daily ration from 1740. Recipe on the drinks page.

Hardtack

Rock-hard ship's biscuit. Insult a colleague's baking with it.

Cackle fruit

Eggs.

Hornswaggle

To cheat or swindle.

Swag

Stolen goods. Yes, that is where the modern word comes from.

Which of these are real?

Most of the ship words (batten down, weigh anchor, three sheets to the wind, loose cannon, cut and run, know the ropes) are genuine sailors' English that leaked into everyday speech, and the orders are still used in navies today. The character phrases are mostly fiction: "shiver me timbers", "yo ho ho" and the pieces-of-eight parrot come from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (1883), and the accent that goes with them comes from one 1950 film performance, which we explain on the talk page. Real pirates of the 1700s came from everywhere and sounded like wherever they were from. None of that matters on the day; it just makes you the most interesting person at the party.

Put it in a sentence

Type anything into the English-to-pirate translator on the home page and it swaps in the words above. For a whole day of it, get an AI to do the work: see the pirate prompts.