plunder

Meaning

Verb

1. (transitive) To pillage, take or destroy all the goods of, by force (as in war); to raid, sack.
2. (transitive) To take (goods) by pillage.
3. (intransitive) To take by force or wrongfully; to commit robbery or looting, to raid.
4. (transitive) To make extensive (over)use of, as if by plundering; to use or use up wrongfully.
5. (transitive) To take unexpectedly.

Noun

1. (uncountable) An instance of plundering.
2. (uncountable) The loot attained by plundering.
3. (dated, slang, uncountable) Baggage; luggage.
4. (Philippines, uncountable) The crime of amassing ill-gotten wealth by public officials through a combination or series of overt criminal acts.

Synonyms

pillage

rob

loot

steal

booty

spoil

sack

despoil

ransack

robbery

ravage

looting

depredation

raid

spoils

strip

snatch

foray

seizure

prize

capture

swag

reave

rapine

pilfer

carry off

destroy

burgle

fleece

rape

prey

extortion

maraud

kill

🔪🩸👤

dirty money

devastate

carrying off

spoliation

deprive

seize

rifle

ravishment

raven

grab

robbing

harry

pirate

marauding

output

violate

Translations

plündern

piller

saccheggiare

saquear

plunderen

pillar

saqueo

saccheggio

depredare

pillage

yağma

Plünderung

roven

pilhar

saccager

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈplʌndə/

Etymology

Cognate with Dutch: plunderen

Cognate with Western Frisian: plonderje

Cognate with Saterland Frisian: plunnerje

Cognate with Middle Dutch: plunder

Cognate with Dutch: -

Cognate with Western Frisian: plunje

In summary

Recorded since 1632 during the Thirty Years War, native British use since the Cromwellian Civil War. Borrowed from German plündern (“to loot”), from Middle High German, from Middle Low German plunderen, from a noun originally meaning "household goods, bedding, clothing," of obscure ultimate origin. This is first attested in medieval records, and according to Gijsseling, is therefore attested too late to be considered a substrate word. Due to the lack of obvious cognates in other languages from which it would have been loaned, it could have developed as some slang word in Lower Saxony/the Low Countries.
Cognate with Dutch plunderen, West Frisian plonderje, Saterland Frisian plunnerje. Probably denominal from a word for “household goods, clothes, bedding”; compare Middle Dutch plunder, German Plunder (“stuff”), Dutch and West Frisian plunje (“clothes”).