pillage
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L269610 on Wikidata ↗verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L332508 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈpɪl.ɪd͡ʒ/ / /ˈpɪl.əd͡ʒ/
noun
Etymology: From Old French pillage, from piller (“plunder”), from an unattested meaning of Late Latin piliō, probably a figurative use of Latin pilō (“to remove (hair)”), from pilus (“hair”).
- The spoils of war.
“Which pillage they with merry march bring home.”
- The act of pillaging.
“An employee at a brewery in Kinshasa rated the aftermath as more catastrophic to the company than the direct violence: It was more the consequences of the pillages that hit Bracongo – the poverty of the people, our friends who buy beer.”
verb
Etymology: From Old French pillage, from piller (“plunder”), from an unattested meaning of Late Latin piliō, probably a figurative use of Latin pilō (“to remove (hair)”), from pilus (“hair”).
- To loot or plunder by force, especially in time of war.
“1911, Sabine Baring-Gould, Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe, Chapter VI: Cliff Castles—Continued, Archibald V. (1361-1397) was Count of Perigord. He was nominally under the lilies [France], but he pillaged indiscriminately in his county.”
“So far as Pridger was concerned the game was up. He had cooked the buying, he had cooked the selling, he had systematically pillaged the stock.”