pillage: [14] The origins of pillage are disputed. It comes from Old French pillage, a derivative of piller ‘plunder’, but there the consensus breaks down. Some say that piller (which also meant ‘tear up’) was based on pille ‘rag, cloth’, which may have been descended from Latin pilleus ‘felt cap’; others that it came from a Vulgar Latin verb *pīliāre, a derivative of Latin pīlum ‘javelin’ (source of English pile ‘supporting stake’); and others again that it came from Latin pilāre ‘remove hair’ (source of English peel [13], which originally meant ‘plunder’), a derivative of pilus ‘hair’ (source of English pile ‘nap’), in which case it would be roughly parallel in inspiration to colloquial English fleece ‘rob’.
pillage (n.)
late 14c., "act of plundering" (especially in war), from Old French pilage (14c.) "plunder," from pillier "to plunder, loot, ill-treat," possibly from Vulgar Latin *piliare "to plunder," probably from a figurative use of Latin pilare "to strip of hair," perhaps also meaning "to skin" (compare figurative extension of verbs pluck, fleece), from pilus "a hair" (see pile (n.3)).
pillage (v.)
"plunder, despoil," 1590s, from pillage (n.). Related: Pillaged; pillaging. The earlier verb in English was simply pill (late Old English), which probably is from Latin pilare.
2. The invading troops were guilty of rape and pillage.
侵略军犯了抢劫和强奸的罪.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. The sense of wrongs, the injustices, the oppression, extortion, and pillage of twenty years suddenly and found voice in a raucous howl of execration.
