loot

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Contents

English [edit]

Etymology [edit]

Attested 1788, a loan from Hindustani लूट /لوٹ lūṭ (spoil, booty), from Sanskrit लुण्ट luṇṭ "to rob, plunder". The verb is from 1842. Fallows (1885) records both the noun and the verb as "Recent. Anglo-Indian".

In origin only applicable to plundering in warfare. A figurative meaning developed in American English in the 1920s, resulting in a generalized meaning by the 1950s

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

loot (uncountable)

  1. plunder, booty, especially from a ransacked city.
  2. (colloquial) (US) any prize or profit received for free, especially Christmas presents
    • 1956 "Free Loot for Children" (LIFE Magazine, 23 April 1956, p. 131)
  3. (video games) Items dropped from defeated enemies in video games and online games.

Synonyms [edit]

Related terms [edit]

Translations [edit]

Verb [edit]

loot (third-person singular simple present loots, present participle looting, simple past and past participle looted)

  1. to steal, especially as part of war, riot or other group violence.
    • 1833 "Gunganarian, the leader of the Chooars, continues his system of looting and murder", The asiatic Journal and monthly register for British India and its Dependencies Black, Parbury & Allen, p. 66.
  2. (video games) to examine the corpse of a fallen enemy for loot.

Translations [edit]

Anagrams [edit]

References [edit]

  • Samuel Fallows, The progressive dictionary of the English language: a supplementary wordbook to all leading dictionaries of the United States and Great Britain (1885).

Dutch [edit]

Verb [edit]

loot

  1. first-, second- and third-person singular present indicative of loten
  2. imperative of loten

Middle Dutch [edit]

Etymology [edit]

From Old Dutch *lōt, from Proto-Germanic *laudą.

Pronunciation [edit]

Noun [edit]

loot n (stem lod-)

  1. lead (metal)

Synonyms [edit]

Descendants [edit]