2 entries under this word
v. t. [imp. & p. p. PLUNDERED; p. pr. & vb. n. PLUNDERING.] [D. plunderen, Ger. plündern, Sw. plundra, Dan. plyndre, from Ger. plunder, frippery, baggage, D. plunje, clothes.]
Syn.—To pillage; spoil; despoil; sack; rifle; strip; rob.
n. 1. That which is taken from an enemy; pillage; prey; spoil. 2. Personal property and effects; baggage or luggage. [Southern and Western U. S.] These bring seventeen bales of furniture, and other rich plunder, which I bless God all came safe to land. Evelyn. Syn.—PLUNDER, BAGGAGE, LUGGAGE. In some of the Western States a traveler's luggage is familiarly called plunder. This strange use of the term is probably derived from the Germans, who abound in that quarter, plunder being a vulgar term in German for baggage, from plundern, to bear or carry off. “An American,” says S. T. Coleridge, “by his boasting of the superiority of the Americans generally, but more especially in their language, once provoked me to tell him that ‘on that head the least said the better, as the Americans presented the extraordinary anomaly of a people without a language; that they had mistaken the English language for baggage (which is called plunder in America), and had stolen it.’” Conversations and Recollections. See PILLAGE.