Ransack

Quick meaning: Ransack is a verb meaning To search (a place, through things, etc.) thoroughly, especially when vigorous and leaving behind a state of disarray.

Meaning

To search (a place, through things, etc.) thoroughly, especially when vigorous and leaving behind a state of disarray.

More Meanings

1. To search for and steal (something) as plunder.
2. To examine (someone or something) carefully; to investigate; also, to question (someone) thoroughly; to interrogate.
3. To look for or seek out (someone).
4. To search (someone) for a thing.
5. To search thoroughly, especially when leaving behind a state of disarray.
6. To search (someone or a place) thoroughly in order to steal something, especially when vigorous and leaving behind a state of disarray; hence, to rob (someone or a place); to plunder.
7. Synonym of penetrate (“to make way into the interior of (something); to pierce”); also, synonym of pervade (“to enter and spread through (something); to permeate”).

Example Sentences

to ransack a house for valuables

He hath ranſaked all the chyſtes I haue for his beades: […]

She [a hen] scratches, ransacks up the earth for food, / Which they [chicks] partake at pleasure.

Here Aguirre took up his lodging, and here he kept his men ready for battle, till the night came on, […] then he permitted them to ransack the town.

Word Forms

• ransacks
• ransacking
• ransacked
• ransackest
• ransackedst
• ransacketh

Synonyms for ransack

Depending on context, synonyms include ramshack, ransackle, rifle, loot, pillage, sack.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include reave, despoil, plunder, pillage, foray, rifle.

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