National Talk Like a Pirate Day may have been and gone, but that doesn’t mean the pirate fun has to stop so we thought we’d give you some tips. Check out our page of pirate words and phrases, along with some rules on how to talk like a Captain and his pirate friends!
Rules of pirate-speak:
- Speak in a deep voice
- Double up your adjectives, which means, words you use to describe things. For example, pirates would not say a ‘big ship’ they would say a ‘great, grand ship’.
- Drop the letter ‘g’ at the end of a word – for example ‘sailing’ becomes ‘sailin’ and ‘fighting’ becomes ‘fightin’
- Drop the letter ‘v’ from words – ‘never’ becomes ‘ne’er’ and ‘over’ becomes ‘o’er’
- Pirates always say ‘I be’ instead of ‘I am’ and ‘You be’ instead of ‘You are’.
Ahoy! – Hello!
Avast! – Stop there and give me some attention. It can also be an exclamation like ‘No way!’
Black spot – To be ‘placin’ the black spot’ — be markin’ someone
Buccaneer – A pirate who be answerin’ to no man or government
Booty – Treasure
Cat o’ nine tails – Whip for floggin’ mutineers
Davy Jones’ Locker – The bottom o’ the sea
Doubloons – Pieces of gold
Jolly Roger – The skull and crossbones, the pirate flag!
Me hearty – A friend or shipmate
Landlubber – Someone who does not go to sea
Me hearty – A friend or shipmate
Pieces o’ eight – Pieces o’ silver which can be cut into eights to be givin’ small change
Scallywag – A bad person, a scoundrel.
Scurvy dog! – A fine insult!
Shiver me timbers! – An exclamation of surprise, to be shouted most loud.
Swashbucklin‘ – Fightin’ and carousin’ on the high seas!
Smartly – To do something quickly
Walk the plank – When someone is made to walk off the plank and is left to drown. Lots of people couldn’t swim years ago.
Yo-ho-ho – Pirate laughter
How many of these pirate words and phrases did you know before reading this? Let us know by commenting down below!
