Christian Caryl et al.Dana BowenTom WolfeC. P. Reynolds
Did you know?
Ransack carries the image of a house being roughly disarranged, as might happen when you are frantically searching for something. This is appropriate given the word’s origin. Ransack comes, via Middle English, from the Old Norse word rannsaka: the rann in rannsaka means “house”; the second half of rannsaka is what is known as an “ablaut” variant of sœkja, meaning “to seek, search out.” But our modern use of the word isn’t restricted to houses. You can ransack a drawer, a suitcase, or even (by hurriedly looking through it) the contents of a book. Ransack also inspired another English word related to disorder and unsteadiness. A now-obsolete form of ransack, ransackle, gave us our adjective ramshackle, meaning “rickety” or “carelessly or loosely constructed.”
Examples of ransack in a Sentence
Spencer Hsu, Washington Post, 4 Apr. 2024
On March 28, 1986, four men forced their way into an apartment on Briarwood Road in what is now the City of Brookhaven, held five students at gunpoint, and raped two young women before ransacking the apartment, according to the release.
—Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN, 31 Mar. 2024
With violence rising in the surrounding neighborhood, the staff evacuated all of the patients to private hospitals in recent days, just before armed gang members overran nearby streets, ransacking and setting fire to several government buildings.
—Frances Robles, New York Times, 17 Mar. 2024
The trucks get smashed up, and the stuff gets looted or ransacked off the backs of the trucks.
—Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 11 Mar. 2024
But that dream life turned into a nightmare for the couple last week, as they are now presumed dead and their boat was found ransacked in middle of the ocean.
—Emily Palmer, Peoplemag, 27 Feb. 2024
After ransacking the home, the men took off in Douglas’ car but abandoned it down the street.
—Robert Salonga, The Mercury News, 29 Jan. 2024
Once inside, the burglars ransack the homes, carrying off cash, jewelry and even safes.
—Caleb Lunetta, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Mar. 2024
The same day, at a Nordstrom, dozens of people dressed in dark clothes ransacked the designer-handbag department, toppling mannequins.
—Paige Williams, The New Yorker, 18 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'ransack.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near ransack
Cite this Entry
“Ransack.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ransack. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
ransack
verb
Share