Other forms: loots
Loot is goods taken by force in war or riot. Carry off the loot, looting the shops, share the loot.
Looting is a war crime under the Hague and Geneva rules, and museums across Europe still hold objects taken that way. The word came into English from Hindi during British rule in India, one of a small group of such borrowings. In games, loot is what a defeated enemy drops.
1nounlootGoods taken by force in war or riot.
“After the riot, police found loot from the shops hidden in a garage.”
loot is stolen goods.
From Hindi lut, booty, from Sanskrit. English took it during British rule in India.
Hindi
लूट
English, today
loot
Built from
Borrowed from Hindi लूट. Borrowed from Hindi लूट (“booty”), either from Sanskrit लोप्त्र (“booty, stolen property”) or लुण्ट् (“to rob, plunder”). The figurative meaning developed in American English in the 1920s, resulting in a generalized meaning by the 1950s.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire