PLUNDERING

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does plundering mean? 

• PLUNDERING (noun)
  The noun PLUNDERING has 1 sense:

1. the act of stealing valuable things from a place

  Familiarity information: PLUNDERING used as a noun is very rare.

• PLUNDERING (adjective)
  The adjective PLUNDERING has 1 sense:

1. given to taking by force what is desired

  Familiarity information: PLUNDERING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLUNDERING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of stealing valuable things from a place

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

pillage; pillaging; plundering

Context example:

his plundering of the great authors

Hypernyms ("plundering" is a kind of...):

aggression; hostility (violent action that is hostile and usually unprovoked)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "plundering"):

banditry (the practice of plundering in gangs)

rape; rapine (the act of despoiling a country in warfare)

looting; robbery (plundering during riots or in wartime)

despoilation; despoilment; despoliation; spoil; spoilation; spoliation (the act of stripping and taking by force)

devastation; ravaging (plundering with excessive damage and destruction)

depredation; predation (an act of plundering and pillaging and marauding)

sack (the plundering of a place by an army or mob; usually involves destruction and slaughter)

Derivation:

plunder (destroy and strip of its possession)

plunder (steal goods; take as spoils)

plunder (plunder (a town) after capture)

• PLUNDERING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Given to taking by force what is desired

Similar:

acquisitive (eager to acquire and possess things especially material possessions or ideas)

 Context examples 

True, my good Aylward; but I have learned from this worthy knight, who hath come over the French marches, that there is a company of Englishmen who are burning and plundering in the country round Villefranche.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And being no stranger to the art of war, I gave him a description of cannons, culverins, muskets, carabines, pistols, bullets, powder, swords, bayonets, battles, sieges, retreats, attacks, undermines, countermines, bombardments, sea fights, ships sunk with a thousand men, twenty thousand killed on each side, dying groans, limbs flying in the air, smoke, noise, confusion, trampling to death under horses’ feet, flight, pursuit, victory; fields strewed with carcases, left for food to dogs and wolves and birds of prey; plundering, stripping, ravishing, burning, and destroying.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The second time we asked ten thousand, but it was three days before we could come to terms, and I am of opinion myself that we might have done better by plundering the palace.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)