Piste Piste A piste () is a marked ski run or path down a mountain for snow skiing, snowboarding, or other mountain sports. This European term is French ("trail", "track") and synonymous with 'trail', 'slope', or 'groomed run' in North America. The word is pronounced using a long "e" sound (e.g. rhymes with "beast"). Increasingly, North Americans employ its common European antonym, 'off piste', to describe backcountry skiing, especially when referring to skiing outside officially approved areas of a ski resort. Pistes are usually maintained using tracked vehicles known as snowcats to compact or "groom" the snow to even out trail
French corsairs of the French Crown, if captured by the enemy, they could in principle claim treatment as prisoners of war, instead of being considered pirates. Because corsairs gained a swashbuckling reputation, the word "corsair" is also used generically as a more romantic or flamboyant way of referring to privateers, or even to pirates. The Barbary pirates of North Africa as well as the Ottoman Empire were sometimes called "Turkish corsairs". The word "corsair" comes directly from the French word "corsaire", itself borrowed from the Italian "corsaro". This derives from the Latin "cursus", meaning "course" (as in journey or expedition). The French