loot
/luːt
/noun [mass noun]
1Private property taken from an enemy in war: the rooms were stuffed with the loot from Francis’s expeditions into Italy...
- This way you're able to survive and get a variety of loot off enemy ships.
- The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which traces Nazi loot, has asked the Art Minister to investigate the Collection's provenance for any connection to the Nazis.
- A spokesman said that nothing had been found so far to substantiate the allegations of Nazi loot being in the collection, and there was also an obligation on those who were making the claims to provide sufficient evidence in support of them.
1.1Stolen money or valuables: the gang escaped with their loot...
- Mystery surrounds a valuable haul of stolen loot discovered by a dog walker.
- He relates the story of a heist gone wrong as a gang begins to suspect each other after their loot is stolen.
- The heroic 64-year-old was blasted in the stomach at point blank range when he tried to stop two armed robbers escaping with their loot.
Synonyms
booty, spoils, plunder, stolen goods, contraband, pillage;
haul, prize
informal swag, the goods, hot goods, ill-gotten gains, boodle
1.2 informal Money: ten thousand quid is a lot of loot...
- I have a designated driver for the night and the plans are to receive a lot of loot, get obscenely drunk, and pass out.
- That's a lot of loot for a pair of companies that have yet to make a dime in profits.
- And before they suggest that ‘state funding of political parties’ is some novel form of financing, let's look at the vast amounts of loot we currently give them.
verb [with object]
1Steal goods from (a place), typically during a war or riot: police confronted the protestors who were looting shops...
- Police and fire service forensics teams picked through the wreckage of a torched car showroom housing 70 cars and a hardware shop which was looted for axes and saws in some of the worst street violence in Britain for years.
- Property and even human beings were randomly set on fire and shops looted during the violence.
- Housing estates have been burnt down, schools ransacked, shops looted.
Synonyms
plunder, pillage, ransack, sack, raid, rifle, rob, burgle, steal from;
maraud, ravage, devastate, lay waste to, wreak havoc on, vandalize;
gut, strip, fleece, clear out
literary despoil
rare depredate, spoliate
1.1Steal (goods) in a war, riot, etc. tonnes of food aid awaiting distribution had been looted
1.2Indian Steal (something) from someone: a gang looted Rs. 1.5 lakh from a passenger...
- This gang had allegedly looted an amount of Rs 61 lakh and killed five persons in nine incidents of crime committed in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh during the past two-and-half years.
- On Sunday night, dacoits looted valuables worth over Rs 1 lakh from a house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar after assaulting the aged residents.
- In the first eleven months, burglars broke into 1,734 houses and looted valuables worth crores of rupees, making a mockery of the night police patrol.
Derivatives
looter
/ noun ...- Too often those efforts have been thwarted by criminals and looters - literally stealing copper cable from power lines.
- Hospitals, struggling to care for casualties, have been hit by looters stealing equipment, medicines and even beds.
- In other districts, vigilantes set up roadblocks and patrolled neighbourhoods to deter thieves and looters.
Origin
Early 19th century (as a verb): from Hindi lūṭ, from Sanskrit luṇṭh- 'rob'.
Like thug, the word loot has its origins in the experience of the British in India. Soldiers picked it up for ‘valuables plundered from an enemy’ from their Hindi-speaking counterparts—it goes back to a word meaning ‘to rob’ in Sanskrit, the ancient language of northern India. The slang sense ‘money’ developed in the 1940s.