Link Centre Dictionary

sack

UK/sak/ US/sæk/ common informal slang us
noun (9) verb (4)

noun

1.

a bag made of paper or plastic for holding customer''s purchases

Synonyms
2.

an enclosed space

  • “the trapped miners found a pocket of air”
Synonyms
3.

the quantity contained in a sack

Synonyms
4.

any of various light dry strong white wine from Spain and Canary Islands (including sherry)

5.

a woman''s full loose hiplength jacket

Synonyms
6.

a hanging bed of canvas or rope netting (usually suspended between two trees); swings easily

Synonyms
7.

a loose-fitting dress hanging straight from the shoulders without a waist

Synonyms
8.

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

  • “the sack of Rome”
9.

verb

1.

plunder (a town) after capture

  • “the barbarians sacked Rome”
Synonyms
2.

terminate the employment of

  • “The boss fired his secretary today”
  • “The company terminated 25% of its workers”
Synonyms
Antonyms
3.

make as a net profit

  • “The company cleared $1 million”
Synonyms
4.

put in a sack

  • “The grocer sacked the onions”

Origin

From Middle English sak, sek, sach, zech (“bag, sackcloth”), from Old English sacc (“sack, bag”) and sæċċ (“sackcloth, sacking”); both from Proto-West Germanic *sakku, from late Proto-Germanic *sakkuz (“sack”), borrowed from Latin saccus (“large bag”), from Ancient Greek σάκκος (sákkos, “bag of coarse cloth”), from Semitic, possibly Phoenician or Hebrew. Cognate with Dutch zak, German Sack, Swedish säck, Danish sæk, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk sekk, Faroese and Icelandic sekkur, Hebrew שַׂק (śaq, “sack, sackcloth”), Aramaic סַקָּא, Classical Syriac ܣܩܐ, Ge'ez ሠቅ (śäḳ), Akkadian 𒆭𒊓 (saqqu), Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. Doublet of sac, saccus, saco, and sakkos. Černý and Forbes suggest the word was originally Egyptian, a nominal derivative of sꜣq (“to gather or put together”) that also yielded Coptic ⲥⲟⲕ (sok, “sackcloth”) and was borrowed into Greek perhaps by way of a Semitic intermediary. However, Vycichl and Hoch reject this idea, noting that such an originally Egyptian word would be expected to yield Hebrew *סַק rather than שַׂק. Instead, they posit that the Coptic and Greek words are both borrowed from Semitic, with the Coptic word perhaps developing via Egyptian sꜣgꜣ. Sense ev...

Phrases

  • back, crack and sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • ball sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • barley sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • bivouac sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • bollock sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • cat in the sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • cock sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • crocker sack Terms derived from sack (noun)
  • sack off
  • sack out
  • sack up

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

See also

Related verbs

Entails

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.