Chapter LONG-SHORE WIND to LOOTY of L by The Hobson Jobson Dictionary

England also, and is now a recognised constituent of the English Slang Dictionary. Admiral Smyth has it in his Nautical Glossary (1867) thus: “Loot plunder, or pillage, a term adopted from China.”

1545.—St. Francis Xavier in a letter to a friend in Portugal admonishing him from encouraging any friend of his to go to India seems to have the thing Loot in his mind, though of course he does not use the word: “Neminem patiaris amicorum tuorum in Indiam cum Praefectura mitti, ad regias pecunias, et negotia tractanda. Nam de illis vere illud scriptum capere licet: ‘Deleantur de libro viventium et cum justis non scribantur.’ … Invidiam tantum non culpam usus publicus detrahit, dum vix dubitatur fieri non malè quod impunè fit. Ubique, semper, rapitur, congeritur, aufertur. Semel captum nunquam redditur. Quis enumeret artes et nomina, praedarum? Equidem mirari satis nequeo, quot, praeter usitatos modos, insolitis flexionibus inauspicatum illud rapiendi verbum quaedam avaritiae barbaria conjuget!”—Epistolae, Prague, 1667, Lib. V. Ep. vii.

1842.—“I believe I have already told you that I did not take any loot—the Indian word for plunder—so that I have nothing of that kind, to which so many in this expedition helped themselves so bountifully.”—Colin Campbell to his Sister, in L. of Ld. Clyde, i. 120.

” “In the Saugor district the plunderers are beaten whenever they are caught, but there is a good deal of burning and ‘looting’ as they call it.”—Indian Administration of Ld. Ellenborough. To the D. of Wellington, May 17, p. 194.

1847.—“Went to see Marshal Soult’s pictures which he looted in Spain. There are many Murillos, all beautiful.”—Ld. Malmesbury, Mem. of an Ex-Minister, i. 192.

1858.—“There is a word called ‘loot’ which gives, unfortunately, a venial character to what would in common English be styled robbery.”—Ld. Elgin, Letters and Journals, 215.

1860.—“Loot, swag or plunder.”—Slang Dict. s.v.

1864.—“When I mentioned the ‘looting’ of villages in 1845, the word was printed in italics as little known. Unhappily it requires no distinction now, custom having rendered it rather common of late.”—Admiral W. H. Smyth, Synopsis, p. 52.

1875.—“It was the Colonel Sahib who carried off the loot”—The Dilemma, ch. xxxvii.

1876.—“Public servants (in Turkey) have vied with one another in a system of universal loot”—Blackwood’s Mag. No. cxix. p. 115.

1878.—“The city (Hongkong) is now patrolled night and day by strong parties of marines and Sikhs, for both the disposition to loot and the facilities for looting are very great.”—Miss Bird, Golden Chersonese, 34.

1883.—“ ‘Loot’ is a word of Eastern origin, and for a couple of centuries past … the looting of Delhi has been the day-dream of the most patriotic among the Sikh race.”—Bos. Smith’s Life of Ld. Lawrence, ii. 245.

„ “At Ta li fu … a year or two ago, a fire,” supposed to be an act of incendiarism, broke out among the Tibetan encampments which were then looted by the Chinese.”—Official Memo. on Chinese Trade with Tibet, 1883.

LOOTY, LOOTIEWALLA, s.

a A plunderer. Hind. luti, lutiya, lutiwala.

1757.—“A body of their Louchees (see LOOCHER) or plunderers, who are armed with clubs, passed into the Company’s territory.”—Orme, ed. 1803, ii. 129.

1782.—“Even the rascally Looty wallahs, or Mysorean hussars, who had just before been meditating a general desertion to us, now pressed upon our flanks and rear.”—Munro’s Narrative, 295.

1792.—“The Colonel found him as much dismayed as if he had been surrounded by the whole Austrian army, and busy in placing an ambuscade to catch about six looties”—Letter of T. Munro, in Life.

„ “This body (horse plunderers round Madras) had been branded generally by the name of Looties but they had some little title to a better appellation, for they were … not guilty of those sanguinary and inhuman deeds. …”—Madras Courier, Jan. 26.

1793.—“A party was immediately sent, who released 27 half-starved wretches in heavy irons; among them was Mr. Randal Cadman, a midshipman taken 10 years before by Suffrein. The remainder were private soldiers; some of whom had been taken by the Looties others were deserters. …”—Dirom’s Narrative, p. 157.

b A different word is the Ar.—Pers. lutiy, bearing a worse meaning, ‘one of the people of Lot,’ and more generally ‘a blackguard.’

[1824.—“They were singing, dancing, and making the luti all the livelong day.”—Hajji Baba, ed. 1851, p. 444.

[1858.—“The Loutis who wandered from town to town with monkeys and other animals, taught them to cast earth upon their heads (a sign of the deepest grief among Asiatics) when they were asked whether they would be governors of Balkh or Akhcheh.”—Ferrier, H. of the Afghans, 101.

[1833.—“Monkeys and baboons are kept and trained by the Lütis or professional buffoons.”—Will’s Modern Persia, ed. 1891, p. 306.]

The people of Shiraz are noted for a fondness for jingling phrases, common enough