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Rob vs Plunder vs Rifle vs Loot vs Burglarize

Robplunderriflelootburglarize are comparable when they mean to take unlawfully possessions of a person or from a place.

All in this basic use imply both an owner of and value inherent in the thing taken. In its basic and legal use rob implies the taking of personal property or valuables from another or from a place in a felonious manner (as by the exercise of violence, by intimidation, or by trickery or fraud).

In extended use rob implies deprivation by unjust means or by powers beyond one’s control.

Plunder implies a despoliation by force (as by armies in war or organized gangs and bandits); it often suggests robbery on an extensive scale or a ravaging or pillaging of a territory.

Sometimes it is extended to wasting or destroying that suggests a pillaging.

Rifle, like plunder, usually implies a despoliation of possessions or valuables, but it distinctively stresses a breaking into and ransacking and therefore usually takes as its object a place, building, treasury, or receptacle.

But the word may also be used when ransacking for the sake of finding something is the chief implication.

Loot differs from plunder chiefly in its suggestion of circumstances which explain the despoliation or make it exceedingly reprehensible; it sometimes implies defiance of all laws governing civilized conduct or desperation or utter venality, but it quite commonly refers to pillaging by undisciplined soldiers or by mobs.

Burglarize implies an act of breaking and entering by night in order to steal; usually, however, it carries, as burglary in law does not necessarily carry, an implication that one’s purpose has been accomplished.