pillage

From Old French pillage, from piller (“plunder”), from an unattested meaning of Late Latin piliō, probably a figurative use of Latin pilō (“I remove (hair)”), from pilus (“hair”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪl.ɪdʒ/, /ˈpɪl.ədʒ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪlədʒ

pillage (third-person singular simple present pillages, present participle pillaging, simple past and past participle pillaged)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To loot or plunder by force, especially in time of war.
   • 1911, Sabine Baring-Gould, Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe, Chapter VI: Cliff Castles—Continued,

     Archibald V. (1361-1397) was Count of Perigord. He was nominally under the lilies [France], but he pillaged indiscriminately in his county.

pillage (countable and uncountable, plural pillages)

1. The spoils of war.
   • (Can we date this quote?) Shakespeare

     Which pillage they with merry march bring home.

2. The act of pillaging.
   • 2013, Zoë Marriage, Formal Peace and Informal War: Security and Development in Congo

     An employee at a brewery in Kinshasa rated the aftermath as more catastrophic to the company than the direct violence: It was more the consequences of the pillages that hit Bracongo – the poverty of the people, our friends who buy beer.

• (spoils of war): See Thesaurus:booty

piller +‎ -age

• IPA^(key): /pi.jaʒ/

pillage m (plural pillages)

1. pillage

From Old French pillage.

pillage m (plural pillages)

1. (Jersey) looting

• pilleux (“looter”)

pillage m (oblique plural pillages, nominative singular pillages, nominative plural pillage)

1. pillaging

• piller