pillage
pronunciation
How to pronounce pillage in British English:
UK [ˈpɪlɪdʒ]
How to pronounce pillage in American English:
US [ˈpɪlɪdʒ]
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- Noun:
- goods or money obtained illegally
- the act of stealing valuable things from a place
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- Verb:
- steal goods; take as spoils
Word Origin
- pillage
- pillage: [14] The origins of pillage are disputed. It comes from Old French pillage, a derivative of piller ‘plunder’, but there the consensus breaks down. Some say that piller (which also meant ‘tear up’) was based on pille ‘rag, cloth’, which may have been descended from Latin pilleus ‘felt cap’; others that it came from a Vulgar Latin verb *pīliāre, a derivative of Latin pīlum ‘javelin’ (source of English pile ‘supporting stake’); and others again that it came from Latin pilāre ‘remove hair’ (source of English peel [13], which originally meant ‘plunder’), a derivative of pilus ‘hair’ (source of English pile ‘nap’), in which case it would be roughly parallel in inspiration to colloquial English fleece ‘rob’.
- pillage (n.)
- late 14c., "act of plundering" (especially in war), from Old French pilage (14c.) "plunder," from pillier "to plunder, loot, ill-treat," possibly from Vulgar Latin *piliare "to plunder," probably from a figurative use of Latin pilare "to strip of hair," perhaps also meaning "to skin" (compare figurative extension of verbs pluck, fleece), from pilus "a hair" (see pile (n.3)).
- pillage (v.)
- "plunder, despoil," 1590s, from pillage (n.). Related: Pillaged; pillaging. The earlier verb in English was simply pill (late Old English), which probably is from Latin pilare.
Synonym
Example
- 1. One reason why the pillage continues is that knowledge of fish stocks is poor , especially in developing countries .
- 2. The reality , of course , was that the americans used their guns to murder and pillage the native americans and drive them from the land .
- 3. But napping doesn 't make you a lazy worker , and it doesn 't pillage your productivity .
- 4. In some rich countries , such as japan and spain , demand for fish is vastly greater than local supply , encouraging fishermen to pillage the world 's seas .
- 5. Their internal city architecture also took for granted the fact that , at any moment , your fellow-citizens would wish to knife , rob or pillage you and your family .