How does the verb pillage contrast with its synonyms?
Some common synonyms of pillage are despoil, devastate, ravage, sack, and waste. While all these words mean "to lay waste by plundering or destroying," pillage implies ruthless plundering at will but without the completeness suggested by sack.
settlements pillaged by Vikings
Where would despoil be a reasonable alternative to pillage?
In some situations, the words despoil and pillage are roughly equivalent. However, despoil applies to looting or robbing without suggesting accompanying destruction.
the Nazis despoiled the art museums
When is it sensible to use devastate instead of pillage?
The synonyms devastate and pillage are sometimes interchangeable, but devastate implies the complete ruin and desolation of a wide area.
an earthquake devastated the city
When might ravage be a better fit than pillage?
While the synonyms ravage and pillage are close in meaning, ravage implies violent often cumulative depredation and destruction.
a hurricane ravaged the coast
When would sack be a good substitute for pillage?
The words sack and pillage can be used in similar contexts, but sack implies carrying off all valuable possessions from a place.
barbarians sacked ancient Rome
When could waste be used to replace pillage?
The words waste and pillage are synonyms, but do differ in nuance. Specifically, waste may imply producing the same result by a slow process rather than sudden and violent action.
years of drought had wasted the area
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of pillage
Noun
Byron is surveying rout and pillage, and the terrible ease with which the laws of civil society, such as respect for the elderly, are flung aside.—Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 26 Feb. 2024 As fans should know, the state’s pillage people have other means of extraction.—K. Lloyd Billingsley, Orange County Register, 25 Feb. 2024
Verb
Uh uh, method dressing is forever, at least for Timothée Chalamet—until the next role-of-a-lifetime comes along, or the parcels of Bob Dylan ephemera pillaged from the online auction houses stop coming through the young actor’s door that is.—Anna Cafolla, Vogue, 16 Mar. 2025 For centuries, the East India Company, a commercial and military organization, pillaged the riches of India to fund the British Empire and the company’s own expansion.—Michael Knights, Foreign Affairs, 11 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for pillage
In fact, the entire original Potlatch Club, once a 1960s and ‘70s hideaway for elites and celebrities — including Greta Garbo, Cliff Robertson and Richard Widmark — had been swallowed up by nature, looted, lashed by hurricane winds and long forgotten.
—
Norma Meyer,
Oc Register,
9 July 2025
Stores in downtown Los Angeles were broken into and looted, and some of the downtown area was vandalized with anti-ICE and anti-Trump graffiti.
Decades of despoiling water bodies have taken a terrible toll, filling water bodies with fetid algae that blocks sunlight and smothers the native seagrass beds that are a main food source for manatees.
—
Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board,
The Orlando Sentinel,
26 June 2025
Gaddis was an obscure state employee who was fired from his job last summer after leaking details of a secret plot by the DeSantis administration to despoil nine pristine Florida state parks with golf courses, pickleball courts and resort-style lodges — all to benefit his wealthy friends.
—
Sun Sentinel Editorial Board,
Sun Sentinel,
17 June 2025
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