loot

/luːt/US/lut/

loot noun: synonym of booty, goods seized from an enemy by violence, particularly (historical) during the sacking of a town in war or (video games) after successful combat. Also the clipping of lieutenant.

Noun (1)

loot (uncountable)

Synonym of booty, goods seized from an enemy by violence, particularly (historical) during the sacking of a town in war or (video games) after successful combat.
- Loot, plunder, pillage.1788, Indian Vocabulary, page 77
- He always found the talismanic gathering-word Loot (plunder), a sufficient bond of union in any part of India.1839, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, number 45, page 104
Synonyms:

booty, goods seized from an enemy by violence, particularly
Synonym of sack, the plundering of a city, particularly during war.
- He consented to the loot of the city by the men under his command.
Synonyms:

sack
(US, colloquial) Any valuable thing received for free, especially Christmas presents.
- Free Loot for Children1956 April 23, Life Magazine, p. 131
(slang) Synonym of money.
- I got my mink the hard way. I paid for it. It cost a lot of loot and it took a little while to do it, but it's all mine.1951 November, Thelma Carpenter, quotee, “10 ways to get a mink coat”, in Jet, Johnson Publishing Company, →ISSN, page 46
- There was nothing to do except for Mom to go back slaving away as somebody's maid. In Baltimore she couldn't make half the loot she could up North.1956, Billie Holiday et al., Lady Sings the Blues, page 26
Synonyms:

money

Verb

loot (third-person singular simple present loots, present participle looting, simple past and past participle looted)

(transitive) Synonym of plunder, to seize by violence, particularly during the capture of a city during war or (video games) after successful combat.
- We looted the temple and the orphanage, which turned most of the NPCs against us.
- Gunganarian, the leader of the Chooars, continues his system of looting and murder1833, The Asiatic Journal & Monthly Register for British India & Its Dependencies, page 66
Synonyms:

plunder, to seize by violence, particularly during the capture of a city during war or
1. (transitive) To rifle through a dead body and the deceased's belongings, taking anything worth stealing.
  - It's shameful to loot the bodies of the people who died today.
(transitive, chiefly South Asian) Synonym of rob, to steal something from someone by violence or threat of violence.
- He told me... that if I gave him less than to the master of the luggage-boat, he would... declare at Shēr-Gurry that I had ‘looted him!’1851 June 20, Mrs. Hervey, journal
Synonyms:

rob, to steal something from someone by violence or threat of violence

Noun (2)

loot (plural loots)

(Northern England, Scotland, UK, dialectal) A scoop used to remove scum from brine pans in saltworks.

Also used as

loot is also the clipping of lieutenant.

loot meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Telugu and Malayalam

loot in Hindi

slang: money, especially illicitly acquired: लूट lūṭ
to plunder: लूटना lūṭnā

loot in Urdu

to plunder: لُوٹنا lūṭnā

loot in Telugu

to plunder: దోచు dōcu

loot in Malayalam

കൊള്ളയടിക്കാൻ

More languagesFewer languages

loot in Kannada: ಲೂಟಿ, ಲೂಟಿ ಮಾಡಲು
loot in Nepali: लुटपाट गर्न
loot in Arabic: نَهَبَ nahaba

Examples of loot in a sentence

The loot from the sack of Constantinople included the head of John the Baptist.
Why, the race [of camp followers] is suckled on loot, fed on theft, swaddled in plunder, and weaned on robbery.1860, William Howard Russell, My Diary in India in the Year 1858–9, volume II, page 340:
The horses in the archbishop's stables the murderers appropriated as their own fee,—or, as we should now say, as loot.1862, Walter F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, volume II, page 505:
Lately, though, filmmakers have made some sincere efforts to be realistic about the sheer bulk of pilfered loot)2019 July 3, Mike D'Angelo, “Oscar Isaac and Ben Affleck Blunder through a Heavy Heist in J.C. Chandor’s Triple Frontier”, in AV Club...
The plunderers are beaten whenever they are caught, but there is a good deal of burning and ‘looting’ as they call it.1842 May 17, Lord Ellenborough, letter

All 40 example sentences with loot

Synonyms of loot

booty
goods seized from an enemy by violence
particularly
sack
money
plunder
to seize by violence
particularly during the capture of a city during war or
rob
to steal something from someone by violence or threat of violence

All synonyms of loot

Forms of loot

Verb
third-person singular present	loots
present participle	looting
past participle	looted
past	looted
Noun
plural	loots
alternative form	lute

Past tense of loot: looted

Origin of loot

Borrowed from Hindi लूट (lūṭ, “booty”), either from Sanskrit लोप्त्र (loptra, “booty, stolen property”) or लुण्ट् (luṇṭ, “to rob, plunder”). The figurative meaning developed in American English in the 1920s, resulting in a generalized meaning by the 1950s.

Borrowed from Middle Dutch loet or loete (“scoop, shovel, scraper”), from reconstructed Old Dutch *lōta, from Old Frankish *lōtija (“scoop”), from Proto-Germanic *hlōþþijō (“scoop”), from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂- (“to lay down, deposit, overlay”). Related to lade and ladle, and cognate with Dutch loet, Scots lute or luyt (“scoop”), West Frisian loete or lete, Middle Low German lōte (“rake”), and French louche (“ladle”).

Clipping.

Words formed from loot

Phrases with loot

Words that rhyme with loot

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about loot

What does loot mean?: Loot means synonym of booty, goods seized from an enemy by violence, particularly (historical) during the sacking of a town in war or (video games) after successful combat.
What is loot in Hindi?: Loot in Hindi is लूट (lūṭ), लूटना (lūṭnā). See Loot meaning in Hindi.
How do you use loot in a sentence?: The loot from the sack of Constantinople included the head of John the Baptist.
What part of speech is loot?: Loot can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce loot?: Loot is pronounced /luːt/ (UK).
What is the plural of loot?: The plural of loot is loots.

Words near loot in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: loot (page history and authors); loot (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); loot (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); loot (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-loot.wav.

Cite this entry: “loot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.