loot

1 of 2

noun

ˈlüt

Synonyms of loot next

: goods usually of considerable value taken in war : spoils

The soldiers helped themselves to any loot that they could find.

: something held to resemble goods of value seized in war: such as

: something appropriated illegally often by force or violence

the thieves' loot

: illicit gains by public officials

: money

would not … spend all that loot on her—

Langston Hughes

: the action of looting

general loot of church land—

Hilaire Belloc

loot

2 of 2

verb

looted; looting; loots

transitive verb

: to plunder or sack in war

: to rob especially on a large scale and usually by violence or corruption

: to seize and carry away by force especially in war

intransitive verb

: to engage in robbing or plundering especially in war

looter noun

Choose the Right Synonym for loot

spoil, plunder, booty, prize, loot mean something taken from another by force or craft.

spoil, more commonly spoils, applies to what belongs by right or custom to the victor in war or political contest.

the spoils of political victory

plunder applies to what is taken not only in war but in robbery, banditry, grafting, or swindling.

a bootlegger's plunder

booty implies plunder to be shared among confederates.

thieves dividing up their booty

prize applies to spoils captured on the high seas or territorial waters of the enemy.

the wartime right of seizing prizes at sea

loot applies especially to what is taken from victims of a catastrophe.

picked through the ruins for loot

Example Sentences

Noun After raiding the town, the soldiers helped themselves to any loot that they could find. The thieves got a lot of loot in the robbery. He made a lot of loot selling cars. Verb The soldiers were looting every house that they came to. Soldiers swept through the territory, looting, burning, and killing.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

But the plea deal had a major upside: Most of the loot was returned. —

Christopher F. Schuetze, New York Times, 16 May 2023 Later, Bourgeois said, Shipp counted the bank loot and gave him $2,000 for driving the getaway car. —

Ashley Luthern, Journal Sentinel, 10 May 2023 The loot is limited to purely weapons of different rarities. —

Paul Tassi, Forbes, 4 May 2023 Some historians claim that KGC stashes of loot remain hidden around the country. —

Popular Mechanics, 14 Apr. 2023 On Instagram these days, I’m mesmerized by accounts like Dungeons & Dragons Daily, which shows off the curator’s ever-expanding stash of game loot, including a bewildering array of international editions. —

Ed Park, The New Yorker, 31 Mar. 2023 However the frozen assets only represent a fraction of the entire loot. —

Bloomberg News, oregonlive, 27 Dec. 2022 When confronted about the items, which were valued at $375, the man took off but left the loot. —

John Benson, cleveland, 23 Nov. 2022 Here’s the way loot drops used to work in Destiny: Play an activity to get a weapon. —

Paul Tassi, Forbes, 20 June 2022

Verb

In the early 1980s, Mr. Esterow received a tip about a monastery in Vienna that was rumored to house thousands of works looted by Nazi soldiers. —

Emmett Lindner, New York Times, 14 May 2023 Ukraine’s military accused Russian troops of stealing cars and looting goods from the front-line areas under the guise of the evacuation. —

Leo Sands, Washington Post, 9 May 2023 By this point, the Sudanese pound had become worthless as shops lay smashed and looted. —

Jack Jeffery And Noha Elhennawy, The Christian Science Monitor, 24 Apr. 2023 Desperate Nazis are in retreat, and burning, looting and pillaging everything in their path. —

Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 24 Apr. 2023 Gadhafi ruled the oil-rich country for 42 years before he was ousted and killed and Libyan officials say family members and others close to him looted government coffers of cash, gold and rare antiquities. —

Benoit Faucon, wsj.com, 23 Apr. 2023 More than 1,000 homes were burned, hundreds more were looted and destroyed and a thriving business district known as Black Wall Street was decimated. —

CBS News, 13 Apr. 2023 As Russia’s Kyiv campaign became bogged down in failure, Russian forces finally pulled out of Chernobyl between March 20th and April 1st, after trashing the facilities and looting valuable equipment and some radioactive materials—which were later tracked back to Gomel and Minsk in Belarus. —

Sébastien Roblin, Popular Mechanics, 3 May 2023 The Roman jeweler’s opulent Place Vendôme store was robbed in broad daylight last Saturday, marking the second time the boutique has been looted since September 2021. —

Demetrius Simms, Robb Report, 3 May 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'loot.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.