Christian Caryl et al.Dana BowenTom WolfeC. P. Reynolds
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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
Jonathan Limehouse, USA TODAY, 24 Oct. 2024
From repeatedly denigrating Tom’s college girlfriend to basically demanding their unborn child be a girl, and yes, for sure, gleefully ransacking Benji and Amelia’s wedding gifts with zero hesitation.
—Maggie Fremont, Vulture, 5 Sep. 2024
But though the home’s master bedroom was ransacked, the assailants never took the hair mogul’s valuable watch on his wrist, piquing the interest of detectives, said then-Robbery Homicide Division Capt. Billy Hayes.
—Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times, 31 Oct. 2024
After the giant wallops him, Indy wakes up and sees the museum ransacked.
—Gieson Cacho, The Mercury News, 29 Oct. 2024
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Cite this Entry
“Ransack.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ransack. Accessed 26 Nov. 2024.
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ransack
verb
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