Distinction between "pillage" and "plunder"

I've allus thought pillage wor looting for the sake of it (maybe taking furniture for firewood), while plunder wor taking by force, to sell or give to the British Museum. But stap me if me trusty Chambers doesn't define pillage as "the act of plundering: plunder" and 'plunder' as (among other things) "vi to pillage: n pillage"!

Truth to tell, there are so few pillagers/plunderers these days that any difference there may have been is lost. [Insert mandatory financial services joke here, ha-har!]

A couple of colleagues and I have been going through some Google NGrams. At first it seems quite conclusive that plundering is a far more sea worthy activity than pillaging, and plundering is certainly the more pirately thing to do:

In an actual example: British critic: and quarterly theological review, Volume 16 (pp. 516 to 518), they appear to use pillage and plunder interchangeably as nouns, but only plunder as a verb. This seems fitting for water-borne criminality.

In this discourse of plunder (page 2) pillage is said to be something that makes up plundering.

However, the further I read into the samples provided by the Google book search, it seems that pillage and plunder can be used interchangeably, it's just that plunder is a far more popular word.

In fact, although it is a much rarer occurrence than "pirates plundered", "pirates pillaged" does appear in literature. Some examples:

• The pirate's own book

• The history of the lives and action of the most famous highwaymen

• The pocket magazine

• Belgium historical and picturesque

Outside of buccaneering, there is a lot of synonymous usage of plunder and pillage - here are some examples:

In a text about the history of English government, on page 94 they write:

Commercial plunder, however, was to be more destructive than military pillage

On page 554 of The new encyclopædia; or, Universal dictionary of arts and sciences they define Pillage by using plunder. An later on page 687 they define plunder using pillage.

There seems to be no difference in the meaning of the two words in The works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume 7 on pages 408 and 410

Again I find the same in "The Forum, Volume 17" (plunder, pillage)

So, in conclusion, it seems that plundering and pillaging are the same thing.

The two words have different etymologies, but the same meaning. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the history of pillage is:

Etymology: < Middle French pillage (French pillage ) booty (14th cent.), action of sacking (c1355) < piller (pilyie v.) + -age -age suffix. Compare post-classical Latin pilagium robbery, plundering (1361, 1363 in British sources).

It is first written in this form in the 1300s:

The action or an act of plundering, sacking, or looting a place, esp. in war; depredation, robbery. In early use also: †extortion; unjust taxation or exaction (obs.). Also fig.

The entry for plunder writes that the phrase is from Dutch or German:

Either < German plündern (Middle High German plundern ) or its equivalents Dutch plunderen (Middle Dutch plunderen , plonderen ), German regional (Low German) plündern (Middle Low German plunderen , plünderen ), all in sense ‘to pillage, sack’, lit. ‘to rob of household furnishings’ (compare also Swedish plundra (1540), Danish plyndre (1567 or earlier as plundre ), both probably < Middle Low German). Middle High German plundern is < plunder , blunder bed-clothes, clothing, household furnishings (German Plunder lumber, trash) < Middle Low German plunder sundries, goods (chiefly in compounds; > plunderen , plünderen ) < plunde , plünde household furnishings, (in plural) clothes, rags (German regional (Low German) Plünde , Plünne ), of unknown origin + -er , collective suffix; cognate with Middle Low German plunde , plünde is Middle Dutch plunde , plunne household furnishings (Dutch regional (Friesland) plunje clothes, baggage). With Middle Low German plunder compare Middle Dutch plunder , plonder (Dutch †plunder , †plonder ) household furnishings ( > plunderen , plonderen ). Swedish †plunder baggage, also rags, trash (1557), Danish †plunder possessions, goods, are probably < Middle Low German.

So plunder was a specific kind of pillaging--it specifically referred to the robbing of household furnishings, while pillage referred to any type of sacking or looting. In use now, however, the difference is the presence of soldiers or not:

'Plunder' refers to the roving of soldiers through recently conquered territory in search of money and goods.

'Pillage' describes the act of stripping a conquered city or people of valuables.

As pirates are not soldiers, they would now pillage, but as they are soldier-like they could also plunder.

Lots of good research. I had always divided the two mentally on the basis of distribution. Recall that "plunder" can be a noun - it can be hoarded - but the usage of "pillage" as a noun seems vanishingly rare. Because "plunder" can be saved, it is given to the institution of marauders; "pillage" is what is given to/saved by the individual marauder, often on the basis of the item being a perishable good.