Word.ws English Dictionary

sack

UK/sæk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/sak/

sack noun: a bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel. Also the dated form of sac.

Noun (1)

sack (plural sacks)

  1. A bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel.
    Synonyms:
    bag, tote, poke
  2. The amount a sack holds; also, an archaic or historical measure of varying capacity, depending on commodity type and according to local usage; an old English measure of weight, usually of wool, equal to 13 stone (182 pounds), or in other sources, 26 stone (364 pounds).
    • The American sack of salt is 215 pounds; the sack of wheat, two bushels. — .
    • Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 stone a tod, 6 1/2 tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. [...] It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, and a tod 28 pounds, so that the sack is 364 pounds.1843, The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume 27, page 202
  3. (uncountable) The plunder and pillaging of a captured town or city.
    • the sack of Rome
  4. (uncountable) Loot or booty obtained by pillage.
    Synonyms:
    booty
  5. A successful tackle of the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.
  6. One of the square bases anchored at first base, second base, or third base.
    • He twisted his ankle sliding into the sack at second.
  7. (informal) Dismissal from employment, or discharge from a position.
    • give (someone) the sack
    • get the sack
    Synonyms:
    the axe
  8. (US, colloquial, figuratively, literally) Bed.
    • hit the sack
    • in the sack
    Synonyms:
    hay
  9. (dated) A kind of loose-fitting gown or dress with sleeves which hangs from the shoulders, such as a gown with a Watteau back or sack-back, fashionable in the late 17th to 18th century; or, formerly, a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape.
    • Molly, therefore, having dressed herself out in this sack, with a new laced cap, and some other ornaments which Tom had given her, repairs to church with her fan in her hand the very next Sunday.1749, Henry Fielding, chapter VII, in The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book IV
    • Her Dress, too, was of the same cast, a thin muslin short sacque and Coat lined throughout with Pink, – a modesty bit – and something of a very short cloak half concealed about half of her old wrinkled Neck […].1780, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 151
  10. (dated) A sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.
  11. (slang, vulgar) The scrotum.
    • He got passed the ball, but it hit him in the sack.
    Synonyms:
    scrotum
  12. Any disposable bag.

Verb

sack (third-person singular simple present sacks, present participle sacking, simple past and past participle sacked)

  1. (transitive) To put in a sack or sacks.
    • Help me sack the groceries.
    • The gold was sacked in moose-hide bags, fifty pounds to the bag, and piled like so much firewood outside the spruce-bough lodge.1903 July, Jack London, “The Sounding of the Call”, in The Call of the Wild, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 197
  2. (transitive) To bear or carry in a sack upon the back or the shoulders.
  3. (transitive) To plunder or pillage, especially after capture; to obtain spoils of war from.
    • The barbarians sacked Rome in 410 CE.
    • My sister wants to sack Tokyo.
    Synonyms:
    loot, ransack
  4. (transitive) To tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, especially before he is able to throw a pass.
    • On third down, the rejuvenated Rickey Jackson stormed in over All-Pro left tackle Richmond Webb to sack Marino yet again for a 2-yard loss.1995, John Crumpacker and Gwen Knapp, "Sack-happy defensive line stuns Dolphins", SFGate.com, November 21
  5. (informal, transitive) To discharge from a job or position; to fire.
    • He was sacked last September.
    • […] Boris Berezovsky on Friday dismissed President Boris Yeltsin's move to sack him from his post as executive secretary of the Commonwealth of Independent States, […]1999 March 5, “Russian media mogul dismisses Yeltsin's bid to sack him”, in CNN.com
  6. (Australia, slang, transitive) To give up on, to abandon, delay, to not think about someone or something.
    • Sack the homework.
    • Sack him, let's run.
    Synonyms:
    fuck, forget, screw

Noun (2)

sack (countable and uncountable, plural sacks)

  1. (dated) A variety of light-colored dry wine from Spain or the Canary Islands; also, any strong white wine from southern Europe; sherry.
    • Wilt pleaſe your Lord drink a cup of ſacke? […] I am Christophero Sly, call not mee Honour nor Lordship: I ne're drank ſacke in my life: […]c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • Giue me a Cup of Sacke, Rogue. Is there no Vertue extant?c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...

Also used as

sack is also the dated form of sac.

sack is also the alternative spelling of sac.

sack meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

sack in Hindi

bag for commodities or items
बोरा borā, बोरी borī, थैला thailā, थैली thailī

sack in Urdu

bag for commodities or items
بورا borā, بوری borī

sack in Bengali

bag for commodities or items
ছালা chala, বস্তা bosta

sack in Malayalam

bag for commodities or items
ചാക്ക് cākkŭ
amount that can be put in a sack; traditional units based on this amount
ചാക്ക് cākkŭ
More languagesFewer languages
sack in Odia
ସ୍ଯ଼ାକ୍
sack in Nepali
स्याक
sack in Arabic
كِيس kīs
sack in Malay
guni, karung
sack in Indonesian
karung
sack in Persian
کیسه kise, گونی guni, ساک sâk
sack in Thai
ถุง tǔng
sack in Vietnamese
bao, bao tải
sack in Myanmar
အိတ် it

Examples of sack in a sentence

  • The boss is gonna give her the sack today.
  • He got the sack for being late all the time.
  • Generally, however, the stone or petra, almost always of 14 lbs., is used, the tod of 28 lbs., and the sack of thirteen stone.1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 4, page 209:
  • A girl porter sacking some of the many thousands of used railway tickets which are turned over by the London Passenger Transport Board to assist the waste paper salvage campaign1942 May-June, “Notes and News”, in Railway Magazine, page 187, photo caption:
  • It [a lyre] was part of the spoils which he had taken when he sacked the city of Eetion […]1898, Homer, translated by Samuel Butler, The Iliad, Book IX:
  • Waste my time working for cowards and creeps / Oh I wish that they'd sack me and leave me to sleep2008, “I Wish That They'd Sack Me”, in The Boy Bands Have Won, performed by Chumbawamba:

All 40 example sentences with sack

Synonyms of sack

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of sack

Forms of sack

Noun
pluralsacks
Verb
third-person singular presentsacks
present participlesacking
past participlesacked
pastsacked

Past tense of sack: sacked

Plural of sack: sacks

Origin of sack

From Middle English sak, sek, sach, zech (“bag, sackcloth”), from Old English sacc (“sack, bag”) and sæċċ (“sackcloth, sacking”); both from Proto-West Germanic *sakku, from late Proto-Germanic *sakkuz (“sack”), borrowed from Latin saccus (“large bag”), from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “bag of coarse cloth”), from Semitic, possibly Phoenician or Hebrew. Cognate with Dutch zak, German Sack, Swedish säck, Danish sæk, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk sekk, Faroese and Icelandic sekkur, Hebrew שַׂק (śaq, “sack, sackcloth”), Aramaic סַקָּא, Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), Akkadian 𒆭𒊓 (saqqu), Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. Doublet of sac, saccus, saco, and sakkos. Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (“to gather or put together”) that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ (sok, “sackcloth”) and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. Sense...

From earlier (wyne) seck from Middle French (vin (“wine”)) sec (“dry”), from Latin siccus (“dry”).

Words formed from sack

Phrases with sack

29 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sack

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sack

What does sack mean?
Sack means a bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel.
What is sack in Hindi?
Sack in Hindi is बोरा (borā), बोरी (borī), थैला (thailā). See Sack meaning in Hindi.
How do you use sack in a sentence?
The boss is gonna give her the sack today.
What part of speech is sack?
Sack can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sack?
Sack is pronounced /sæk/ (UK).
What is the plural of sack?
The plural of sack is sacks.

Words near sack in the dictionary

  1. Saci
  2. Sacian
  3. Sacians
  4. saciety
  5. sacituzumab govitecan
  6. sack
  7. sack barrow
  8. sack barrows
  9. sack dress
  10. sack drill
  11. sack knot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sack (page history and authors); sack (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); sack (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-sack.ogg, en-au-sack.ogg.

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