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Added 9 October 2026

sack

/sæk/ noun

In Latin: saccus, culeus, follis Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about sack at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A bag made of paper or plastic for holding customer's purchases.
An enclosed space.
the trapped miners found a pocket of air
The quantity contained in a sack.

verb

Plunder (a town) after capture.
the barbarians sacked Rome
Terminate the employment of; discharge from an office or position.
The boss fired his secretary today
Make as a net profit.
The company cleared $1 million

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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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