Word of the Day

: November 21, 2023

ransack

verb RAN-sak

What It Means

To ransack a place is to search it for something in a way that causes disorder or damage.

// My sister ransacked my room looking for the shoes I had borrowed (and returned).

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ransack in Context

“Now, I didn't pick up any Halloween candy on this particular Costco trip for one big reason. If I bring home a giant sack of assorted goodies, my kids will ransack that stash in short order.” — Maurie Backman, The Motley Fool, 12 Sept. 2023

Did You Know?

Ransack carries the image of a house being roughly disarranged, as might happen when you are frantically searching for something. This is appropriate given the word’s origin. Ransack comes, via Middle English, from the Old Norse word rannsaka: the rann in rannsaka means “house”; the second half of rannsaka is what is known as an “ablaut” variant of sœkja, meaning “to seek, search out.” But our modern use of the word isn’t restricted to houses. You can ransack a drawer, a suitcase, or even (by hurriedly looking through it) the contents of a book. Ransack also inspired another English word related to disorder and unsteadiness. A now-obsolete form of ransack, ransackle, gave us our adjective ramshackle, meaning “rickety” or “carelessly or loosely constructed.”