wokou; Japanese pirates (13th–16th c.)
Historical term originally used in China and Korea for Japanese pirates who raided the coasts during the 13th to 16th centuries.
The wokou raided the coasts of the Korean Peninsula in the 14th century.
The Ming Dynasty struggled to suppress the wokou.
Variant spelling using 和 instead of 倭; less common but historically attested.
From Chinese 倭寇 (wōkòu), literally 'dwarf bandits', where 倭 was an ancient Chinese name for Japan and 寇 means 'bandit' or 'invader'.