Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To search or examine thoroughly.
- v. To search carefully for plunder; pillage.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To search thoroughly; seek carefully in all parts of; explore, point by point, for what is desired; overhaul in detail.
- To sack; pillage completely; strip by plundering.
- To obtain by ransacking or pillage; seize upon; carry off; ravish.
- To violate; deflower: as, “ransackt chastity,”
- To make penetrating search or inquisition; pry; rummage.
- n. Detailed search or inquisition; careful investigation.
- n. A ransacking; search for plunder; pillage; sack.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To loot or pillage. See also sack.
- v. transitive To make a vigorous and thorough search of (a place, person) with a view to stealing something, especially when leaving behind a state of disarray.
- v. archaic To examine carefully; to investigate.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To search thoroughly; to search every place or part of.
- v. To plunder; to pillage completely.
- v. obsolete To violate; to ravish; to defiour.
- v. To make a thorough search.
- n. rare The act of ransacking, or state of being ransacked; pillage.
WordNet 3.0
- v. steal goods; take as spoils
- v. search thoroughly
Etymologies
- From Middle English ransaken, from Old Norse rannsakka, from rann ("house") + saka ("search"); probably influenced by sack (Wiktionary)
- Middle English ransaken, from Old Norse rannsaka : rann, house + *saka, to search, seek; see sāg- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“It is true, Hawley said, that TSA agents open the luggage of all selectees (the word "ransack" seems another case of the clerk editorializing).”
“I-9 audit, asking for records instead of what he described as a "ransack" of the business, which started at 8: 30 a.m.”
“Patrician vicissitudes run ransack with benign alignments of the brain.”
“They ransack everything from 1960s handclaps to 1950s-style twangs.”
“I said “back in the days of the stress tests,” that particular epoch, a time when the banks were tied and gagged and on their knees, and we, the American people, had an opportunity to ransack THEIR house.”
“Throw petrol over a policeman, shout for people to be killed, ransack shops, launch everything you can lift at the police = no problem. on January 12, 2009 at 6: 49 pm | Reply Jack Straw”
“I'm pretty sure this would impact this problem in a good way, cause if I was trying to ransack a 200 'tanker and I saw armed men keeping watch, I'll go elsewhere in my fishing boat and look for easier prey.”
“It is famously one of the most troubling poems in the Psalter, giving conniptions to theologians, who ransack the life of David for an enemy vile enough to deserve a song so hard to hear as God's inspired word.”
“To leap ahead, Andersen goes on to argue that all this toing and froing -- all this boring sameness -- stems from the democratization of distribution caused by the information revolution, which allows everyone you, me, Pottery Barn to ransack the past for previously inaccessible style and consume it like a fast-food cheeseburger, a sighing decline into nostalgia and cultural obesity.”
The Huffington Post: Robert Teitelman: Andersen and DeLong Review the Past
“But things get strange when one of his professors turns up to ransack his apartment and question him about a reproduction of an alien artifact known as the Star Stone.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ransack’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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LIT - Iliad - key words and protagonists
depict, delegation, daughter, Dardanus, Dardanian, Dardan, Hellespont, cupbearer, Crete, Cretan, Creon, copulate and 713 more...
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Things Foxes Do
Behaviors you might expect from a character in Fantastic Mr Fox.
abscond, outwit, fox, ransack, turn tables, dig, sneak, vixens, baffle, tatterdemalion, aboiement, sneckdraw and 1 more...
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I am : violent
Destructive verbs that speed up entropy. (Still working on definition of what I want; may add adjectives later.)
destroy, wreck, thrash, trash, beat up, annihilate, exterminate, disembowel, eviscerate, disintegrate, explode, bomb and 41 more...
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Thievery
synonymous with steal.
pinch, lift, pilfer, appropriate, bilk, abscond, burgle, usurp, purloin, shoplift, bite, five finger discount and 38 more...
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WordMasters Blue Division Set 2
rampage, prissy, trample, infamy, severe, deplete, callow, slacken, threshold, obscure, teem, barren and 12 more...
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Viking Words
From http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/10/viking-words-in-english/
anger, birth, bleak, bloom, call, cast, crawl, crook, die, fellow, gear, get and 36 more...
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kalidas's Words
crepuscular, mellifluous, ephemeral, diaphanous, zeitgeist, geisterfahrer, infinite, eternal, idyllic, azure, reminiscent, oblivion and 521 more...
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Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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Malachi_Constant's Words
triumverate, pandemic, parsnip, delineate, zamboni, parka, laser, swoop, malevolent, benevolent, fracas, tipsy and 372 more...
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old faves
ones I already liked
vacuole, organelle, debauchle, voluptuous, spry, cattywampus, obscure, occlude, occult, celtic, voracious, ardently and 133 more...
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tomax's Words
legerdemain, yayo, extravasation, wont, faze, coxswain, concomitant, enclave, unguent, rhabdomyolysis, effluent, puerile and 432 more...
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SAT PSAT ALPHABETICAL R
rabid, raconteur, rail, rambunctious, ramification, rampant, rancor, rancorous, range, rankle, ransack, rapacious and 112 more...
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deegee's Words
pay-per-view, vitriol, delectable, snarky, unflinching, forsake, pervasive, inconsequential, unnerving, allure, endearing, unalloyed and 414 more...
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wordsmith III: revenge of wordie
sedimentary, igneous, segment, surfeit, unctuous, magma, garble, ransack, concubine, coincide, metamorphic, clastic and 208 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ransack.
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