ransack
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "ransack", 7-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "ransack" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "ransack" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
ransack is aEnglishverb. It means: To search (a place, through things, etc.) thoroughly, especially when vigorous and leaving behind a state of disarray. Pronounced /ˈɹænsæk/.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | ransack |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈɹænsæk/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #87,733 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for ransack is 7 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹænsæk/. Corpus data places it at rank #87,733 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for ransack in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The verb is derived from Middle English ransaken (“to examine, investigate; to rob, plunder, steal; to search, seek; to treat roughly, mistreat”), from Old Norse rannsaka (“to search a house (especially for stolen goods)”), from rann (“house”) (from Proto-G… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is ransack, spelled R-A-N-S-A-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To search (a place, through things, etc.) thoroughly, especially when vigorous and leaving behind a state of disarray.
- 2To search (someone or a place) thoroughly in order to steal something, especially when vigorous and leaving behind a state of disarray; hence, to rob (someone or a place); to plunder.
- 3To search for and steal (something) as plunder.
- 4To examine (someone or something) carefully; to investigate; also, to question (someone) thoroughly; to interrogate.
- 5To look for or seek out (someone).
- 6To search (someone) for a thing.
- 7Synonym of penetrate (“to make way into the interior of (something); to pierce”); also, synonym of pervade (“to enter and spread through (something); to permeate”).
- 8To search thoroughly, especially when leaving behind a state of disarray.
- 9To search for and steal things.
Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English ransaken (“to examine, investigate; to rob, plunder, steal; to search, seek; to treat roughly, mistreat”), from Old Norse rannsaka (“to search a house (especially for stolen goods)”), from rann (“house”) (from Proto-Germanic *razną (“dwelling, house”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁reh₁- (“to rest; quiet”)) + saka, an ablaut variant of sœkja, sǿkja (“to look for, search, seek”) (from Proto-Germanic *sōkijaną (“to look for, seek”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *seh₂g- (“to follow; to seek out, trace”)). Verb verb sense 1.2 (“to search (someone, or a place) thoroughly in order to steal something”), verb sense 1.3 (“to search for and steal (something) as plunder”), and verb sense 2.2 (“to search for and steal things”) is probably influenced by sack (“to pillage, to plunder”). The noun is derived from the verb. cognates * Middle Low German rānsāken, rantsāken * Old Danish randsage, ransage (modern Danish ransage) * Old Swedish ransaka (modern Swedish rannsaka)
Synonyms
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Frequency rank: #87,733 in English
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Nearby English words
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