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Prey vs Loot - What's the difference?

prey | 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

  • (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
    • And they brought the captives, and the prey , and the spoil, unto Moses, and Eleazar the priest.
  • That which is or may be seized by animals or birds to be devoured; hence, a person given up as a victim.
  • * Dryden
    • Already sees herself the monster's prey .
  • * Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
    • [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
  • A living thing that is eaten by another living thing.
  • * Bible, Job iv. ii
    • The old lion perisheth for lack of prey .
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= William E. Conner
    • , title= 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.}}
  • The act of devouring other creatures; ravage.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Hog in sloth, fox in stealth, lion in prey .
  • The victim of a disease.

    • Related terms

    * prey on

    References

    *

    Anagrams

    *

    loot

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) loet, loete .

    Alternative forms

    *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A kind of scoop or ladle, chiefly used to remove the scum from brine-pans in saltworks.

    • 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 1950s

    Noun

    (-)
  • The act of plundering.
    • the loot of an ancient city
  • 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, p. 131)
  • (video games) Items dropped from defeated enemies in video games and online games.
    • Synonyms
    * swag
    Related terms
    * contraband * plunder

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • 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, p. 66.
  • (video games) to examine the corpse of a fallen enemy for loot.

    • Anagrams

    * *

    References

    *Samuel Fallows, The progressive dictionary of the English language: a supplementary wordbook to all leading dictionaries of the United States and Great Britain (1885). English terms derived from Hindi English terms derived from Urdu ----