Hey, pirate dinosaurs would be very cool….

Dear Word Detective: I’m trying to find the origin of the word “pirate.” Is “pirate” of European descent? — Brent Lilly.

Oh boy, pirates. At one point in my youth, after my passion for dinosaurs had cooled but before I became fixated on shortwave radio, I decided that I really wanted to be a pirate. My unlikely ambition was almost certainly inspired by the classic over-the-top performance of Robert Newton as Long John Silver in Disney’s 1950 movie of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.” It turned out, however, that pirate captains rarely recruit in suburban Connecticut, and eventually I moved on to wanting to be a disk jockey, which was just as well. Modern pirates, who now operate largely off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, are simply thugs, kidnappers and murderers. (I realize that description also fits my beloved 18th century pirates, but at least they were nice to their parrots.)

“Pirate” is indeed of European descent, in that it is based on an Indo-European root and came to us, as many English words do, through Greek, Latin, and Old French incarnations. The Indo-European root in the case of “pirate” was “per,” which carried the sense of “try” or “risk.” Its Greek descendant “pieran” meant “to attempt” as well as “to attack,” and eventually we had the Latin form “pirata,” which meant “attacker, robber,” and later specifically “sea attacker.” From there on, the various forms carried the sense of “one who attacks at sea,” although figurative use of “pirate” in a more general sense to mean “one who exploits or plunders” was also common.

To double back to that Indo-European “per” (meaning “try” or “risk”) for a moment, it’s interesting to note that the same root ultimately also produced the modern English words “expert,” “experience” and “peril,” among others.

In English, “pirate” appeared in the late 14th century with the meaning of “a person who robs ships at sea,” with the figurative use meaning “robber, marauder, plunderer” on land as well as sea arising about 100 years later. I was surprised to learn that “pirate” in the sense of “one who uses another’s work without permission,” much in the news lately with regard to people “pirating” software and music, was actually first used all the way back in the late 17th century (“Some dishonest Booksellers, called Land-Pirats, who make it their practise to steal Impressions of other mens Copies,” 1668). “Pirate” in the sense of an unlicensed radio station dates back to 1913, or pretty much as soon as there were radio stations. Unlicensed taxicabs (and even buses) have also been known as “pirates” since 1889, though, at least in New York City, they are more commonly called “gypsy cabs.”

Birds not of a feather.

Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of “jink” and “jinks”? Are they related? — Bill Billings.

Hmm. In reading your question, I realized that I’m not entirely certain whether you’re asking about “jinks” as in “high jinks” (sometimes spelled “hijinks”) or “jinx” in the sense of “enduring curse.” So, to be on the safe side, we’ll take a look at “jink,” “jinks” and “jinx.” You know, it just occurred to me that we’d be in serious trouble if this column were operating on one of those obnoxious “voice recognition” customer service systems (“OK, you’re asking about “rink” and “fink,” correct?”).

It’s probably easiest to begin with “jink,” which first appeared in Scots dialect in the 18th century as a verb meaning “to move with a sudden quick motion,” specifically “to wheel or fling about while dancing.” The origin of “jink” is thought to be onomatopoeic or “echoic,” meaning that the sound of the word itself is evocative of the quick, sharp action of “jinking.” Today “jink” as a verb is used to mean “to make a quick evasive move; to dodge a pursuer,” and is used primarily in sports (particularly rugby) and aeronautics, where a fighter pilot may “jink” (turn suddenly) to throw off a pursuing aircraft.

The “jinks” in “high jinks,” meaning “playful, rowdy activity” or “disruptive pranks or unruly behavior” comes from a slightly different Scots dialect sense of “jink” as a noun meaning “game” or “prank.” Apparently “high jinks” in the 16th century was a drinking game (at the time also known as “high pranks”) in which the loser in a throw of dice had to perform a silly task (or drink a certain quantity of alcohol). By the mid-19th century, “high jinks” in standard English had come to mean “lively merrymaking” and “boisterous pranks” in general.

After tracing that convoluted evolutionary path of “jinks,” it’s a relief to report that “jinx,” meaning “curse or spell,” is a completely unrelated word with no connection to “jink.” As a matter of fact, “jinx,” which first appeared in American English in 1911, is actually a misspelling of the much older word “jynx,” which dates back to the 1600s (and is rooted in the Greek “iynx”). This older form “jynx” was another name for a kind of European woodpecker also known as a “wryneck” for its habit of twisting its head around when disturbed.

While the sight of a bird doing a head-spinning routine reminiscent of “The Exorcist” was, no doubt, a bit spooky, the connection of “jynx” to “curse” is a bit more indirect. In the 17th century, the feathers of the jynx were though to be a vital component of the charms and spells concocted by witches, so “jynx” (and later “jinx”) became a synonym for “spell” or “curse,” and “jinx” as a verb came to mean to curse with bad luck (“What do you mean humming love songs when their darn pitcher is forcing in runs? You jinxed my ball club,” 1917).