different between plunder vs sackful

English

Etymology

Recorded since 1632 during the Thirty Years War, native British use since the Cromwellian Civil War. Borrowed from German plündern (“to loot”), from Middle High German, from Middle Low German plunderen. Cognate with Dutch plunderen, West Frisian plonderje, Saterland Frisian plunnerje. Probably denominal from a word for “household goods, clothes, bedding”; compare Middle Dutch plunder, German Plunder (“stuff”), Dutch and West Frisian plunje (“clothes”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: pl?n'd?(r), IPA^(key): /?pl?nd?(?)/
• Rhymes: -?nd?(?)

Verb

plunder (third-person singular simple present plunders, present participle plundering, simple past and past participle plundered)

1. (transitive) To pillage, take or destroy all the goods of, by force (as in war); to raid, sack.
2. (transitive) To take (goods) by pillage.

3. (intransitive) To take by force or wrongfully; to commit robbery or looting, to raid.

4. (transitive) To make extensive (over)use of, as if by plundering; to use or use up wrongfully.

5. (transitive) To take unexpectedly.
   • 2014, Paul Doyle, "Southampton hammer eight past hapless Sunderland in barmy encounter", The Guardian, 18 October 2014:

     The Serb teed up Steve Davis, who crossed low for Graziano Pellè to plunder his fifth league goal of the campaign.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

plunder (uncountable)

1. An instance of plundering.
2. The loot attained by plundering.

   See Thesaurus:booty

3. (slang, dated) Baggage; luggage.
   • 1880, The Peterson Magazine (volumes 77-78, page 215)

     […] till a long-legged boy brought him out of his revery, by an offer to carry his “plunder,” in whatsoever direction he might desire to direct his steps.

See also

• manubial

Translations

Dutch

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch plunder, further etymology unknown.

Alternative forms

• plonder (obsolete)

Noun

plunder c (plural plunders, diminutive plundertje n)

1. One's property, (collective) possessions

   Synonyms: have (en goed), huisraad

   1. Notably furniture and other (mainly small) home inventory

Derived terms

Etymology 2

Verb

plunder

1. first-person singular present indicative of plunderen
2. imperative of plunderen

English

Etymology 1

sack (“bag”) +? -ful

Noun

sackful (plural sackfuls or sacksful)

1. The amount a sack will contain.

   A sackful of sand won't help the soil here much, but a dump truck full would.

   • c. 1623, Owen Felltham, Resolves, Divine, Morall, Politicall, London: Henry Seile, Essay 48, p. 155,^[1]

     If I be not so rich, as to sowe almes by sackfulls, euen my Mite, is beyond the superfluity of wealth: and my pen, my tongue, and my life, shal (I hope) helpe some to better treasure, then the earth affoords them.

   • 1966, Truman Capote, In Cold Blood, New York: Modern Library, 1992, Part 3, p. 227,^[3]

     You live until you die, and it doesn’t matter how you go; dead’s dead. So why carry on like a sackful of sick cats just because Herb Clutter got his throat cut?

2. (figuratively) A large number or amount (of something).
   • 1590, Henry Barrow, A Brief Discoverie of the False Church, p. 231,^[4]

     what can the Pope say more for his sackfull of traditions?

   • 1680, Richard Head, The English Rogue Continued in the Life of Meriton Latroon, London: Francis Kirkman, Chapter 7, p. 87,^[5]

     […] away we went home again fraught with a Sackful of news to tell our Master.

   • 1853, uncredited translators, German Popular Tales and Household Stories: Collected by the Brothers Grimm, New York: C.S. Francis, Volume I, 74. “The Fox and the Cat,” p. 381,^[6]

     […] I understand a hundred arts, and have, moreover, a sackful of cunning!

   • 1915, H. Rider Haggard, Allan and the Holy Flower, London: Longman, Green, Chapter 19, p. 349,^[7]

     Day and night the poor fellow raved, and always about that confounded orchid, the loss of which seemed to weigh upon his mind as though it were a whole sackful of unrepented crimes.

   • 1986, Hanif Kureishi, “Bradford” in Granta 20, Winter, 1986, p. 163,^[8]

     He received sackfuls of hate mail and few letters of support.

Translations

Etymology 2

sack (verb) +? -ful

Adjective

sackful (comparative more sackful, superlative most sackful)

1. (obsolete) Intent on plunder.
   • c. 1611, George Chapman (translator), The Iliads of Homer, London: Nathaniell Butter, Book 2, p. 30,^[9]

     Now will I sing the sackfull troopes, Pelasgian Argos held,