sack
Meanings
- A bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with handles used at a supermarket, a grocery sack; or, a small bag for small items, a satchel.
- The amount a sack holds; also, an archaic or historical measure of varying capacity, depending on commodity type and according to local usage; an old English measure of weight, usually of wool, equal to 13 stone (182 pounds), or in other sources, 26 stone (364 pounds).
- The plunder and pillaging of a captured town or city.
- Loot or booty obtained by pillage.
- A successful tackle of the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.
- One of the square bases anchored at first base, second base, or third base.
- Dismissal from employment, or discharge from a position.
- Bed.
- A kind of loose-fitting gown or dress with sleeves which hangs from the shoulders, such as a gown with a Watteau back or sack-back, fashionable in the late 17th to 18th century; or, formerly, a loose-fitting hip-length jacket, cloak or cape.
- A sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.
- The scrotum.
- Any disposable bag.
- To put in a sack or sacks.
- To bear or carry in a sack upon the back or the shoulders.
- To plunder or pillage, especially after capture; to obtain spoils of war from.
- To tackle the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage, especially before he is able to throw a pass.
- To discharge from a job or position; to fire.
- To give up on, to abandon, delay, to not think about someone or something.
- A variety of light-colored dry wine from Spain or the Canary Islands; also, any strong white wine from southern Europe; sherry.
- Dated form of sac (“pouch in a plant or animal”).
- Alternative spelling of sac (“sacrifice”).
- Alternative spelling of sac (“sacrifice”).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
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 evolution * “Pillage” senses from the use of sacks in carrying off plunder. From Middle French sac, shortened from the phrase mettre à sac (“put it in a bag”), a military command to pillage; also parallel meaning with Italian sacco (“plunder”), from Medieval Latin saccō (“pillage”). From Vulgar Latin saccare (“to plunder”), from saccus (“sack”). See also ransack. American football “tackle” sense from this “plunder, conquer” root. * “Removal from employment” senses attested since 1825; the original formula was “to give (someone) the sack”, likely from the notion of a worker going off with his tools in a sack, or being given such a sack for his personal belongings as part of an expedient severance. Idiom exists earlier in French (on luy a donné son sac, 17c.) and Middle Dutch (iemand den zak geven). English verb in this sense recorded from 1841. Current verb, to sack (“to fire”) carries influence from the forceful nature of “plunder, tackle” verb senses. * Slang meaning “bunk, bed” is attested since 1825, originally nautical, likely in reference to sleeping bags. The verb meaning “go to bed” is recorded from 1946. * Slang meaning "scrotum" is an ellipsis of ballsack.