depredate means to ransack or plunder; to prey upon. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
depredate is pronounced /ˈdɛpɹədeɪt/.
Why “depredate” is a great word
DEPREDATE — [Verb] To plunder, lay waste to, or prey upon, typically in a violent or destructive manner. From Late Latin dēpraedārī, dēpraedāt-, from Latin dē- (expressing completeness) + praedārī ("to plunder, prey upon"). First attested in English in the 1620s. Unlike "pillage," which evokes an open, ruthless seizure, or "ravage," which foregrounds the resultant ruin, to depredate centers on the systematic process of consumption itself. It is the locust swarm methodically stripping a field to stalks, the patient hollowing of a beam by termites, or the quiet, cumulative ruin of a ledger by embezzlement—a patient machinery of extraction that hollows a place from the inside out.
verb
- To ransack or plunder; to prey upon.“It makes the substance of the body […] less apt to be consumed and depredated by the spirits.”