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.
1549. Thomas, Hist. Italie, 82. Thei … send forth yerely certaine armed galeis to kepe the seas against Corsales, and Pyrates.
1588. Greene, Perimedes, 9. A Barke of Coursayres and pyrates came by.
1599. Hakluyt, 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.
1607. in Ellis, Orig. Lett., I. 246, III. 88. French and Italian Corsares.
1671. Charente, Let. Customs, 44. Master de Razilly came to make war with the Corsaires of Salee.
1697. C’tess. D’Aunoy’s Trav. (1706), 72. Meluza, the most famous and covetous of all the Corsaries.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., Crit. Hist., 97. The Corsories or Pyrates of Tripoly.
1773. Brydone, Sicily, xiii. (1809), 157. The incursions of the Barbary corsairs.
1814. Byron, Corsair, III. xxiv. 18. He left a Corsair’s name to other times.
1869. Lecky, 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.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., III. (1682), 96. There are many Cursares and Turkish Galleots, that still afflict these Islanders. Ibid., lx. 385. Which they as a Cursaro or man of War confiscated.
1686. trans. Chardin’s Trav. Persia, i. 3. There are usually about Forty Christian Corsairs Cruising up and down in the Archipelago.
1726. W. R. Chetwood, Adv. Capt. R. Boyle, 25. The Captain of the Corsair was an Irish Renegado.
1869. Rawlinson, Anc. Hist., 337. Tuscan corsairs covered the Western Mediterranean.
3. attrib. (with corsaire ship cf. F. gallée coursaire 15th c.)
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VIII. (1682), 346. Two hundred Cursary ships or Pyrats.
1876. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1843), I. 131. Idlers of their own species called by apiarists corsair-bees, which plunder the hives of the industrious.
1863. Bright, Sp., America, 26 March. Men … who will build corsair ships to prey upon the commerce of a friendly power.
