sack

Meanings

Noun

• A bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel.
• The amount a sack holds; also, an archaic or historical measure of varying capacity, depending on commodity type and according to local usage; an old English measure of weight, usually of wool, equal to 13 stone (182 pounds), or in other sources, 26 stone (364 pounds).
• The plunder and pillaging of a captured town or city.
• Loot or booty obtained by pillage.
• A successful tackle of the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. See verb sense⁴ below.
• One of the square bases anchored at first base, second base, or third base.
• Dismissal from employment, or discharge from a position, usually as give (someone) the sack or get the sack. See verb sense⁵ below.
• Bed (either literally or figuratively); usually as hit the sack or in the sack. See also sack out.
• (also sacque) A kind of loose-fitting gown or dress with sleeves which hangs from the shoulders, such as a gown with a Watteau back or sack-back, fashionable in the late 17th to 18th century; or, formerly, a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape.
• A sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.
• The scrotum.
• A variety of light-colored dry wine from Spain or the Canary Islands; also, any strong white wine from southern Europe; sherry.
• Alternate spelling of sac

Verb

• To put in a sack or sacks.
• To bear or carry in a sack upon the back or the shoulders.
• To plunder or pillage, especially after capture; to obtain spoils of war from.
• To tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, especially before he is able to throw a pass.
• To discharge from a job or position; to fire.
• Alternate spelling of sac

Related

Similar words

• bag, tote, poke
• , pink slip, , , , one's cards, the old heave-ho
• hay, rack
• loot, ransack
• rack

Narrower meaning words

• bindle

Origin

• From Middle English sak ("bag, sackcloth"), from Old English sacc ("sack, bag") and sæcc; both from Proto-West Germanic *sakku, from late Proto-Germanic *sakkuz ("sack"), borrowed from Latin saccus ("large bag"), from Ancient Greek σάκκος ("bag of coarse cloth"), from Semitic, possibly Phoenician or Hebrew.
• Cognate with Dutch zak, German Sack, Swedish säck, Danish sæk, Hebrew שַׂק ("sack, sackcloth"), Aramaic סַקָּא, Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ, Ge'ez ሠቅ, Akkadian 𒆭𒊓, Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. sac.
• Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ ("sackcloth") and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ.
• “Pillage” senses from the use of sacks in carrying off plunder. From Middle French sac, shortened from the phrase mettre à sac (“put it in a bag”), a military command to pillage; also parallel meaning with Italian sacco, from Medieval Latin saccō. From Vulgar Latin saccare, from saccus. See also ransack. American football “tackle” sense from this “plunder, conquer” root.
• “Removal from employment” senses attested since 1825; the original formula was “to give (someone) the sack”, likely from the notion of a worker going off with his tools in a sack, or being given such a sack for his personal belongings as part of an expedient severance. Idiom exists earlier in French (on luy a donné son sac, 17c.) and Middle Dutch . English verb in this sense recorded from 1841. Current verb, to sack (“to fire”) carries influence from the forceful nature of “plunder, tackle” verb senses.
• Slang meaning “bunk, bed” is attested since 1825, originally nautical, likely in reference to sleeping bags. The verb meaning “go to bed” is recorded from 1946.
• Slang meaning "scrotum" is an ellipsis of ballsack.
• From earlier (wyne) seck from Middle French (vin) sec, from Latin siccus ("dry")