| 释义 |
corsair|ˈkɔːsɛə(r)|
Forms: α. 6 corsale, 6–7 cursaro; β. 6 coursayre, (7 cursare, corsare), 7–8 corsaire, 7– corsair; γ. 6–7 corsary, 7–8 cursary, 8 corsory; δ. 7 cursour, -ore, corser.
[a. F. corsaire, in 15 –16th c. coursaire = Pr. corsari, Sp. corsario, It. corsale, corsare, formerly corsaro, -ario, med.L. cursārius (1234 in Matt. Paris, Du Cange), f. med.L. cursus, cursa hostile excursion, inroad, plunder, booty (L. cursus a run, march, voyage), It., Sp., Pr. corsa, F. course run, naval expedition for plunder. Eng. had in early use the It. forms corsale, corsare, and in the 17th c. the anglicized forms cursary, corsary, cursor, cursour.
(The reference of the name to Corsica was a piece of Italian popular etymology and animosity.)]
1. The name in the languages of the Mediterranean for a privateer; chiefly applied to the cruisers of Barbary, to whose attacks the ships and coasts of the Christian countries were incessantly exposed. In English often treated as identical with pirate, though the Saracen and Turkish corsairs were authorized and recognized by their own government as part of its settled policy towards Christendom.
1549Thomas Hist. Italie 82 Thei..send forth yerely certaine armed galeis to kepe the seas against Corsales, and Pyrates. 1588Greene Perimedes 9 A Barke of Coursayres and pyrates came by. 1599Hakluyt Voy. II. i. 128 margin, A Foist is..much vsed of the Turkish Cursaros, or as we call them Pirates or Rouers. Ibid. 217 There are many Corsaries or Pyrats which goe coursing alongst that coast, robbing and spoiling. 1607in Ellis Orig. Lett. i. 246 III. 88 French and Italian Corsares. 1671Charente Let. Customs 44 Master de Razilly came to make war with the Corsaires of Salee. 1697C'tess D' Aunoy's Trav. (1706) 72 Meluza, the most famous and covetous of all the Corsaries. 1716M. Davies Athen. Brit., Crit. Hist. 97 The Corsories or Pyrates of Tripoly. 1773Brydone Sicily xiii. (1809) 157 The incursions of the Barbary corsairs. 1814Byron Corsair iii. xxiv. 18 He left a Corsair's name to other times. 1869Lecky Europ. Mor. II. iv. 271 The terms brigand or corsair conveyed in the early stages of society no notion of moral guilt.
2. A privateering vessel such as those of the Barbary coast; a pirate-ship sanctioned by the country to which it belongs.
1632Lithgow Trav. iii. (1682) 96 There are many Cur sares and Turkish Galleots, that still afflict these Islanders. Ibid. ix. 385 Which they as a Cursaro or man of War confiscated. 1686tr. Chardin's Trav. i. 3 There are usually about Forty Christian Corsairs Crusing up and down in the Archipelago. 1726W. R. Chetwood Adv. Capt. R. Boyle 25 The Captain of the Corsair was an Irish Renegado. 1869Rawlinson Anc. Hist. 337 Tuscan corsairs covered the Western Mediterranean.
3. attrib. (with corsaire ship cf. F. gallée coursaire 15th c.)
1632Lithgow Trav. viii. (1682) 346 Two hundred Cursary ships or Pyrats. 1816Kirby & Sp. Entomol. (1843) I. 131 Idlers of their own species called by apiarists corsair-bees, which plunder the hives of the industrious. 1863Bright Sp., America 26 Mar., Men..who will build corsair ships to prey upon the commerce of a friendly power.
4. a. A scorpænoid fish of the Californian coast, Sebastomus rosaceus. U.S.
1884Goode Nat. Hist. Aquatic Anim. 265 Corsair (Sebastichthys rosaceus)..is known to the Portuguese fishermen at Monterey by the name of ‘Corsair’. Ibid., Spotted Corsair (Sebastichthys constellatus). 1905D. S. Jordan Guide to Study of Fishes II. xxv. 430 The commonest of these [red species] is the corsair, Sebastichthys rosaceus, plain red and golden.
b. A reduviid predatory bug of the genus Rasahus.
1909in Cent. Dict. Suppl. 1926E. O. Essig Insects Western N. Amer. xxii. 356 The western corsair..is one of the commonest species in California, Arizona, and Mexico. 1939Duncan & Pickwell World of Insects xiii. 223 (caption) The bug on the left is a nymph of the Western Corsair. |
