loot
/lut/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.49 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Synonym of booty, goods seized from an enemy by violence, particularly (historical) during the sacking of a town in war or (video games) after successful combat.
Uncountable
noun
Any valuable thing received for free, especially Christmas presents.
American usage; Colloquial; Uncountable
verb
Synonym of plunder, to seize by violence, particularly during the capture of a city during war or (video games) after successful combat.
Transitive verb
verb
Synonym of plunder, to seize by violence, particularly during the capture of a city during war or (video games) after successful combat.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "Loot, plunder, pillage."
- "He always found the talismanic gathering-word Loot (plunder), a sufficient bond of union in any part of India."
- "Why, the race [of camp followers] is suckled on loot, fed on theft, swaddled in plunder, and weaned on robbery."
- "The horses in the archbishop's stables the murderers appropriated as their own fee,—or, as we should now say, as loot."
- "But yet, with the persistent avariciousness of the white man, the Arabs clung to their loot, and when morning came forced the demoralized Manyuema to take up their burdens of death and stagger on into the jungle."
- "India went from being a world-famous exporter of finished cloth into an importer, went from having 27% of world trade to less than 2%. Meanwhile, colonialists like Sir Robert Clive bought their rotten boroughs in England on the proceeds of their loot in India while taking the Hindi word "loot" into their dictionaries as well as their habits."
Etymology
Borrowed from Hindi लूट (lūṭ, “booty”), either from Sanskrit लोप्त्र (loptra, “booty, stolen property”) or लुण्ट् (luṇṭ, “to rob, plunder”). The figurative meaning developed in American English in the 1920s, resulting in a generalized meaning by the 1950s.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: लूट, लोप्त्र, loet, *lōta, *lōtija, *hlōþþijō
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /lut/
- British English: /luːt/
Usage
- Uncountable
- American usage
- Colloquial
- Slang
- Transitive verb
- British usage
- Dated