Word of the Day

: June 22, 2013

ransack

verb RAN-sak

What It Means

1 a : to search thoroughly

b : to examine closely and carefully

2 a : to search through to commit robbery

b : to search through in a way that causes disorder or damage

ransack in Context

Robbers ransacked the apartment looking for money.

"In a video posted on Youtube [sic] Monday, a troop of baboons appears to invade a house in South Africa and ransack the place before eventually being chased out." - From an article by Sara Gates in The Huffington Post, April 24, 2013

Did You Know?

"Ransack" carries the image of a house being torn out of order, as might happen when you are frantically searching for something. This is appropriate given the word's origin. "Ransack" derives via Middle English from Old Norse "rannsaka"; the "rann" in "rannsaka" means "house." The second half of "rannsaka" is related to an Old English word, "secan," meaning "to seek." But our modern use of the word isn't restricted to houses. You can ransack a drawer, a suitcase, or even the contents of a book (for information). A now-obsolete frequentative form of "ransack," "ransackle," gave us our adjective "ramshackle."