house plunder

See also: house-plunder

English

WOTD – 4 October 2021

Etymology

From house +‎ plunder (“(chiefly Southern US, slang, dated) baggage, luggage; household items; personal belongings”).^[1]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊs ˌplʌndə/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhaʊs ˌplʌndɚ/, /-ˌplən-/
Hyphenation: house plund‧er

Noun

house plunder (uncountable)

(chiefly Southern US) Miscellaneous household items. [from mid 19th c.]
Synonym: household goods
- 1852, Cora Montgomery, “A Pioneer Mother”, in Eagle Pass; or, Life on the Border, New York, N.Y.: George P[almer] Putnam & Co., […], →OCLC, page 28:
  [P]eople had stock, and children, and house plunder, and a stout log cabin to cover them, […]
- 1885 December 11 – 1886 February 11, William Penn Ryman, quoting John R. Barton, “The Early Settlement of Dallas Township, Pa.”, in Horace Edwin Hayden, editor, Proceedings and Collections of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, volume VI, Wilkes-Barré, Pa.: […] [E. B. Yordy Co.] for the [Wyoming Historical and Geological] Society, published 1901, →OCLC, pages 212–214:
  I can count many families living in log houses with a ladder only for a stairway to the loft, where one or more beds and sometimes house plunder and grain were kept; while the room below—kitchen, dining-room and parlor—where the wool was carded into rolls, spun and sometimes woven into cloth, prepared for the puller, to be made into good warm winter goods.
- 1888 August 15, B. T. Igleheart, “Notice”, in McHenry Rhoads, Frank L. Felix, editors, The Hartford Herald, volume XIV, number 33, Hartford, Ky.: [McHenry Rhoads and Frank L. Felix], →OCLC, page 3, column 3:
  Also I will sell all of my house plunder, such as bedding, chairs, tables, parlor and kitchen furniture.
- 1894 November, Lizzie Hyer Neff, “A November Idyl”, in The Peterson Magazine, volume IV (New Series), number 5, Philadelphia, Pa.: Penfield Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 1114, column 2:
  I'm the squire from Buckskin Township, an' I rather think I married that old lady with red cheeks to an oldish man in a butternut suit, drivin' a span of grays to a green wagon full of house plunder, an' with two red cows tied behind.
- 1914, John Preston Arthur, “Manners and Customs”, in Western North Carolina: A History (from 1730 to 1913), Asheville, N.C.: The Edward Buncombe Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution; Raleigh, N.C.: Edwards & Broughton Printing Company, →OCLC, page 253:
  Each girl got a cow, a mare and sufficient "house[-]plunder" with which to set up house-keeping, but they rarely got any land, the husband being expected to provide that.
- 1917, Louise S[aunders] Murdoch, “In Memoriam”, in Almetta of Gabriel’s Run, New York, N.Y.: The Meridian Press, →OCLC, page 101:
  Why, she married that oldest boy of little Ike's, a moughty well-turned, civil, workin' boy, an' his folks give 'im a heifer an' some house[-]plunder, an' her mam give 'em a bed an' a nice lot uv quilts, an' they've set up fer theirselves.
- 1938 December, Richard Chase, Kay Chase, quoting R. M. Ward, “Jack and the Bean Tree (The Jack Tales No. 4)”, in Alton C. Morris, editor, Southern Folklore Quarterly, volume II, number 4, Gainesville, Fla.: The University of Florida in cooperation with the Southeastern Folklore Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 202:
  So Jack got all them things from the giant and gathered up all the house-plunder that wasn't tore up when the house hit the ground.
- 1940, Jesse Stuart, “Part IV”, in Trees of Heaven, Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, published 1980, →ISBN, section 1, page 188:
  I 'spect you'll be able to haul all their house plunder at one load. Them mules could pull that slab shack they live in, house plunder and the family if you could git it all on the wagon.
- 1948, “The Old Sow and the Three Shoats”, in Richard Chase, editor, Grandfather Tales: American-English Folk Tales […], Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 1976, →ISBN, page 83:
  Fin'lly the old sow she fixed Jack three days' rations and a little house-plunder on a drag-sled and he headed for the wilderness.
- 1956, Fred Gipson, chapter 1, in Old Yeller, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, →ISBN, page 7:
  That made me recollect how Birdsong Creek had got its name. Mama had named it when she and Papa came to settle. Mama had told me about it. She said she named it the first day she and Papa got there, with Mama driving the ox cart loaded with our house plunder, and with Papa driving the cows and horses.
- 1986, Richard Young, Judy Dockrey Young, compilers, “The Hoop Snake”, in Ozark Tall Tales: Collected from the Oral Tradition, Little Rock, Ark.: August House, published 1989, →ISBN, page 84:
  Knowing how much Grandma wanted a lumber house, Grandpa cut down the buck-tree and ripsawed it into boards. He put up a fine board house, and they moved all their house-plunder in.
- 1970, Herbert Maynor Sutherland, “Bad ’Lige Shoots a Ghost”, in Tall Tales of the Devil’s Apron, Johnson City, Tenn.: The Overmountain Press, published 1988, →ISBN, page 206:
  The last feller that lived thar tuck off so fast he left his beds an' house[-]plunder thar.
- 1975, Janice Holt Giles, “Wilderness Road”, in Wellspring, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →ISBN, pages 76–77:
  She wished, though, there had been a way to take more of the house-plunder. […] Still and all, it was a wrench to leave her beds and her tables, her chairs, and the dish dresser Daniel had made for her.
- 1997, Rose O’Neill, chapter 2, in Miriam Formanek-Brunell, editor, The Story of Rose O’Neill: An Autobiography, Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, →ISBN, page 69:
  You'd never calkelate he was mean-turned from his looks. But he grab-snatched everything the old man had. Got away with his house[-]plunder even.
- 2007, Anne Shelby, “Grind Mill Grind”, in The Adventures of Molly Whuppie and Other Appalachian Folktales, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 52:
  Then they got to asking the mill to grind out good clothes for them to wear and new house plunder, and it ground out that. Then the man, he would say the right words, and the mill would quit.

Alternative forms

house-plunder

Translations

miscellaneous household items — see household goods

References

^ Compare “plunder, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2021.