Definition: pillage

Source: WordNet (r) 1.7

pillage
     n 1: goods or money obtained illegally [syn: loot, booty, plunder,
           prize, swag]
     2: the act of stealing valuable things from a place; "the
        plundering of Rome"; "his plundering of the great authors"
        [syn: plundering, pillaging]
     v : steal goods; take as spoils; "During the earthquake people
         looted the stores that were deserted by their owners"
         [syn: plunder, despoil, loot, reave, strip, rifle,
          ransack, foray]

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Pillage \Pil"lage\, n. [F., fr. piller to plunder. See Pill to
   plunder.]
   1. The act of pillaging; robbery. --Shak.

   2. That which is taken from another or others by open force,
      particularly and chiefly from enemies in war; plunder;
      spoil; booty.

            Which pillage they with merry march bring home.
                                                  --Shak.

   Syn: Plunder; rapine; spoil; depredation.

   Usage: Pillage, Plunder. Pillage refers particularly to
          the act of stripping the sufferers of their goods,
          while plunder refers to the removal of the things thus
          taken; but the words are freely interchanged.

Pillage \Pil"lage\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Pillaged; p. pr. & vb.
   n. Pillaging.]
   To strip of money or goods by open violence; to plunder; to
   spoil; to lay waste; as, to pillage the camp of an enemy.

         Mummius . . . took, pillaged, and burnt their city.
                                                  --Arbuthnot.

Pillage \Pil"lage\, v. i.
   To take spoil; to plunder; to ravage.

         They were suffered to pillage wherever they went.
                                                  --Macaulay.