Prey vs Loot - What's the difference?
prey | loot |
(archaic) Anything, as goods, etc., taken or got by violence; anything taken by force from an enemy in war; spoil; booty; plunder.
* Bible, Numbers xxxi. 12
That which is or may be seized by animals or birds to be devoured; hence, a person given up as a victim.
* Dryden
* Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
A living thing that is eaten by another living thing.
* Bible, Job iv. ii
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title= The act of devouring other creatures; ravage.
* Shakespeare
The victim of a disease.
A kind of scoop or ladle, chiefly used to remove the scum from brine-pans in saltworks.
The act of plundering.
plunder, booty, especially from a ransacked city.
(colloquial, US) any prize or profit received for free, especially Christmas presents
*1956 "Free Loot for Children" (LIFE Magazine, 23 April 1956,
(video games) Items dropped from defeated enemies in video games and online games.
to steal, especially as part of war, riot or other group violence.
*1833 "Gunganarian, the leader of the Chooars, continues his system of looting and murder", The asiatic Journal and monthly register for British India and its Dependencies Black, Parbury & Allen,
(video games) to examine the corpse of a fallen enemy for loot.
As nouns the difference between prey and loot
is that prey is (archaic) anything, as goods, etc, taken or got by violence; anything taken by force from an enemy in war; spoil; booty; plunder while loot is a kind of scoop or ladle, chiefly used to remove the scum from brine-pans in saltworks or loot can be the act of plundering.As a verb loot is
to steal, especially as part of war, riot or other group violence.prey
English
Noun
- And they brought the captives, and the prey , and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest.
- Already sees herself the monster's prey .
- [The helmsman] steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk
- The old lion perisheth for lack of prey .
William E. Conner
An Acoustic Arms Race, volume=101, issue=3, page=206-7, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Nonetheless, some insect prey take advantage of clutter by hiding in it. Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.}}
- Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, lion in prey .
References
*Anagrams
*loot
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) loet, loete .Alternative forms
*Noun
(en noun)Etymology 2
Attested 1788, a loan from Hindustani . The verb is from 1842. Fallows (1885) records both the noun and the verb as "Recent. Anglo-Indian". In origin only applicable to plundering in warfare. A figurative meaning developed in American English in the 1920s, resulting in a generalized meaning by the 1950sNoun
(-)- the loot of an ancient city
p. 131)
Synonyms
* swagVerb
(en verb)p. 66.