• (America, RP) IPA: /luːt/
• (Australia) IPA: /ɫʉːt/

Borrowed from Hindi लूट, either from Sanskrit लोप्त्र or लुण्ट् ("to rob, plunder").

loot (uncountable)

1. Synonym of booty, goods seized from an enemy by violence, particularly (historical) during the sacking of a town in war or (video games) after successful combat.
   • 1788, Indian Vocabulary, page 77:

     Loot, plunder, pillage.

   • 1860, William Howard Russell, My Diary in India in the Year 1858–9, volume II, page 340:

     Why, the race [of camp followers] is suckled on loot, fed on theft, swaddled in plunder, and weaned on robbery.

   • 1862, Walter F. Hook, Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, volume II, page 505:

     The horses in the archbishop's stables the murderers appropriated as their own fee,—or, as we should now say, as loot.

   • 2015, Shashi Tharoor, "Britain Does Owe Reparations", 00:02:22 ↗:

     India went from being a world-famous exporter of finished cloth into an importer, went from having 27% of world trade to less than 2%. Meanwhile, colonialists like Robert Clive bought their rotten boroughs in England on the proceeds of their loot in India while taking the Hindi word "loot" into their dictionaries as well as their habits.

   The loot from the sack of Constantinople included the head of John the Baptist.
2. Synonym of sack, the plundering of a city, particularly during war.

   He consented to the loot of the city by the men under his command.

3. (colloquial, US) Any valuable thing received for free, especially Christmas presents.
   • 1956 April 23, Life Magazine, p. 131 ↗:

     Free Loot for Children

4. (slang) Synonym of money.
   • 1943, John Leslie Hunt et al., Service Slang, page 44:

     Loot, Scottish slang for money received on pay day.

• French: fric, pognon
• German: Knete (slang), Zaster (slang)
• Italian: bottino, maltolto
• Portuguese: moedas
• Spanish: botín

loot (loots, present participle looting; simple past and past participle looted)

1. (transitive) Synonym of plunder, to seize by violence particularly during the capture of a city during war or (video games) after successful combat.
   • 1842 May 17, Lord Ellenborough, letter:

     The plunderers are beaten whenever they are caught, but there is a good deal of burning and ‘looting’ as they call it.

   We looted the temple and the orphanage, which turned most of the NPCs against us.
2. (transitive, chiefly South Asian) Synonym of rob, to steal something from someone by violence or threat of violence.
   • 1851 June 20, Mrs. Hervey, journal:

     He told me... that if I gave him less than to the master of the luggage-boat, he would... declare at Shēr-Gurry that I had ‘looted him!’

• French: piller
• German: plündern
• Italian: saccheggiare, depredare, predare, fare man bassa
• Portuguese: saquear, pilhar, bundar (Angola)
• Russian: гра́бить
• Spanish: saquear

Borrowed from Middle Dutch loet or loete ("scoop, shovel, scraper"), from reconstructed odt *lōta, from Old Frankish *lōtija, from Proto-Germanic *hlōþþijō, from Proto-Indo-European *kleh₂-.

Related to lade and ladle, and cognate with Dutch loet, Scots lute or luyt ("scoop"), Western Frisian loete or lete, Middle Low German lōte, and French louche.

loot (plural loots)

1. (UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A scoop used to remove scum from brine pans in saltworks.

Clipping.

loot (plural loots)

1. (US military slang, dated) Clipping of lieutenant
   • 1898, Finley Peter Dunne, Mr. Dooley in Peace & War, page 11:

     R-run over an' wake up th' loot at th' station.