loot

Meanings

Noun

• A kind of scoop or ladle, chiefly used to remove the scum from brine-pans in saltworks.
• The act of plundering.
• plunder, booty, especially from a ransacked city.
• Any prize or profit received for free, especially Christmas presents
• Items dropped by defeated enemies.

Verb

• To steal, especially as part of war, riot or other group violence.
• To steal from.
• to examine the corpse of a fallen enemy for loot.

Origin

• , from Old Dutch *lōta, from Old Frankish *lōtija, from Proto-Germanic *hlōþþijō, from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂- ("to lay down, deposit, overlay"). Cognate with Scots lute, luyt, West Frisian loete, lete, Middle Low German lōte ("rake"), French louche . Related to lade, ladle.
• Attested 1788, a loan from Hindustani लूट/لوٹ, from Sanskrit लुण्ट् ("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.