maraudern.
/məˈrɔːdə/, U.S. /məˈrɔdər/, /məˈrɑdər/ 1. A person who marauds; a freebooter, a plunderer.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > possession > taking > stealing or theft > thief > robber > sacker, raider, or looter > [noun]
reavereOE
forayerc1330
cateran1371
ransackerc1390
depopulatorc1440
rover1481
forager1489
river?a1500
riderc1550
wight-rider1569
predour1577
sacker1589
harrier1596
boot-haler1600
marauder1698
poligar1773
skinner1780
looter1860
raider1861
1698 R. Ferguson View of Ecclesiastick in Socks & Buskins 89 To be a Maroder and Pillager upon the street and Field of Humane Credit and Reputation is worse..than to turn common Padders.
1712 London Gaz. No. 5031/5 A Band of Maroders, consisting of Men of several Nations.
1774 T. Pennant Tour Scotl. 1772 77 Went..expressly to free the country from moroders.
1808 Sir J. Moore in Campaign in Spain (1809) 19 He is determined to shew no mercy to plunderers and marauders.
1870 J. H. Burton Hist. Scotl. to 1688 VI. lxx. 520 The marauders hovered round them like vultures round a wounded man.
1950 R. Macaulay World my Wilderness xxi. 146 There is much lawless wickedness in this district now, and many marauders come over the mountains from Spain.
1989 R. J. Smith Unknown CIA vi. 91 Farmers, rubber tappers, and their families were moved inside stockades where they could be protected from marauders.
2. In extended use: a predator, scavenger, etc.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > possession > taking > stealing or theft > thief > petty thief or pilferer > [noun]
mitcher?c1225
nimmera1325
pilferer1350
truffer1485
lurcher1528
picker1549
filcher1557
purloiner1557
prig1567
prigger1567
prigman1567
fingerer1575
piker1590
prag1592
nibbler1598
lurch-man1603
petty larcener1640
budge1673
catch-cloaka1679
prigster1682
sutler1699
marauder1764
snib1823
chicken thief1840
lurker1841
souvenir hunter1862
robberling1865
jackdaw1887
miker1890
frisker1892
bower-bird1926
jagoff1931
magpie1944
slockster-
1764 J. Grainger Sugar-cane ii. 58 Some place decoys, nor will they not avail, Replete with roasted crabs; in every grove These fell marauders gnaw.
1847 H. Miller First Impressions Eng. v. 93 Exposed to every hungry marauder of the deep.
1861 A. Trollope Orley Farm (1862) I. xxii. 178 The raisins shall become the prey of those audacious marauders only who dare to face the presence of the ghost.
1935 K. C. McKeown Insect Wonders Austral. 5 The marauders issuing from holes in the carcass in long streams, each ant bearing a fragment of flesh in its jaw.
1989 A. Brookner Lewis Percy vii. 100 He was a marauder, a manhandler, busy taking the text away from the author and turning it into something else.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2000; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1698