Definition of "ransack" [ran•sack]

• To search or examine thoroughly. (verb-transitive)
• To search carefully for plunder; pillage. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It is true, Hawley said, that TSA agents open the luggage of all selectees (the word "ransack" seems another case of the clerk editorializing)."
• "I-9 audit, asking for records instead of what he described as a "ransack" of the business, which started at 8: 30 a.m."
• "Patrician vicissitudes run ransack with benign alignments of the brain."