Pirate: Did you mean...?

An 18th-century engraving showing the pirate Edward England and his ship Fancy attacking the East India Company ship Cassandra in 1720.

A 17th-century illustration of the Dutch privateer and pirate Roche Brasiliano (active 1650s to 1660s). From an early edition of Alexander Exquemelin’s Buccaneers of America, first published in Dutch in 1678.

A late-19th century cigarette card showing the British pirate Captain Samuel Bellamy (d. 1717). Bellamy died when his ship the Whydah was wrecked in a storm off Cape Cod. Produced by Allen & Ginter. Lithographer: George S. Harris & Sons...

A late-19th century cigarette card showing the Irish-born pirate Anne Bonny, active in the Caribbean in 1719-20. Produced by Allen & Ginter. Lithographer: George S. Harris & Sons. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

A late-19th century cigarette card showing the Dutch pirate and privateer Laurens de Graaf (active 1682 to 1695). Produced by Allen & Ginter. Lithographer: George S. Harris & Sons. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

A late-19th century cigarette card showing the notorious English pirate Edward Low who was active in the Caribbean and eastern Atlantic from 1721 to 1724 during the Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730). Low was known for his acts of cruelty on...

An early 18th-century print of the English pirate John Rackham, otherwise known as 'Calico Jack' (d. 1720). The illustration appeared in an early edition of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates by Captain...

A 17th-century illustration of the pirate and privateer Olivier van Noort who was the first Dutchman to circumnavigate the globe (1598-1601). (From a 1926 edition of Around the World by Olivier van Noort 1598-1601, Volume I. by Dr. J.W. Ironman...

Patrick Lyster as the English pirate Captain Benjamin Hornigold (d. 1719) in the TV series Black Sails. © 2014 Starz

Pirate ships could come in all shapes and sizes. There were big ones and small ones, sail ships and rowing boats. Some were bristling with cannons; others made do with scary fellas wielding cutlasses and grappling hooks. But what type of...