plunder

Etymology

It is borrowed from German plündern (“to pillage, sack”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} or perhaps its Dutch counterpart, borrowed from Dutch plunderen;^[2][8][9] the OED thinks the first English records, which concern the Thirty Years' War in southern Germany, perhaps favour German.^[2] Its literal sense was "to rob of household goods".^[2][7][8] The verb goes back to plundern,^[3][4][5] from plunder (“bedclothes, clothing, household goods”),^[2][6][5] which the OED traces to Middle Low German plunder (“sundries, goods”), formed from plunde (“household goods, in the plural clothes, rags”), of unknown origin, with a collective suffix.^[2] Related forms are Middle Dutch plunder and plonder, household goods,^[2][5][1] and Frisian plunje (“clothes”);^[3][5][1] Swedish plundra and Danish plyndre probably come from Middle Low German.^[2] The German noun survives as Plunder (“lumber, trash”).^[3][6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

To rob a place or person of goods by force, especially in war: 1632, in the Swedish Intelligencer, a news account of the Thirty Years' War.^[2][5][10]

Semantic evolution

The word reached English and its neighbours from German during the Thirty Years' War (1618–48), when many foreign mercenaries served and much looting was done.^[5][3][2] After the English Civil War broke out in 1642 it was applied at home, at first to the doings of Prince Rupert's troops,^[7][2][11] and Thomas Fuller wrote in 1652 that "we first heard thereof in the Swedish wars".^[3] Barnhart compares the step from household goods and clothes to booty with robe and rob.^[5] The noun followed in 1643, first for the act of plundering, with the sense of goods taken following in 1647.^[2][5][10] The word was soon widened to dishonest gain in general (1661 for the act, 1790 in Burke for the proceeds),^[2] and since 1896 the verb was used of borrowing freely from another's writing or art.^[2][10] In the southern United States plunder has also meant personal belongings or baggage since 1780, a sense the OED derives directly from the German or Dutch noun.^[2][10] In Yorkshire and Lincolnshire dialect it meant the profit made on a deal.^[12]

Timeline

• 1632 – to rob a place or people by force, in the Thirty Years' War.^[2][5][10]
• 1642 – intransitive, to pillage.^[2]
• 1643 – noun, the act of plundering; verb, to take goods as plunder.^[2][5][10]
• 1647 – goods taken by force, booty.^[2][5]
• 1661 – wholesale or dishonest acquisition of wealth.^[2]
• 1780 – personal belongings, baggage (chiefly southern US).^[2]
• 1790 – wealth gained by dishonest means.^[2]
• 1896 – to take material from another's writing or art.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rob a place or people of goods by force, especially in war; to pillage or loot: The raiders plundered every farm along the coast.^[4][10][13]
2. To take goods or valuables by force or wrongfully; to steal.^[4][10][13]
3. To commit robbery or pillage.^[4][2]
4. To take material freely from a writer's or artist's work for one's own use.^[10][2]

Noun

1. Goods taken by force or theft; booty, spoils.^[4][10][13]
2. The act of plundering; pillage.^[4][10][13]
3. (chiefly southern US dialect) Personal belongings or household goods; baggage.^[10][2]

Word family

• plunderable
• plunderer
• plunderous
• plunderingly
• unplundered
• plunderage

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins