SACK, n. [L. saccus. Heb. See the verb to sack.]

1. A bag, usually a large cloth bag, used for holding and conveying corn, small wares, wool, cotton, hops, and the like. Gen. xlii. Sack of wool, in England, is 22 stone of 14 lbs. each, or 308 pounds. In Scotland, it is 24 stone of 16 pounds each, or 384 pounds. A sack of cotton, contains usually about 300 lbs, but it may be from 150 to 400 pounds. Sack of earth, in fortification, is a canvas bag filled with earth, used in making retrenchments in haste. – Encyc.
2. The measure of three bushels. – Johnson.

A species of sweet wine, brought chiefly from the Canary isles. – Encyc. Fr. Dict.

Among our rude ancestors, a kind of cloke of a square form, worn over the shoulders and body, and fastened in front by a clasp or thorn. It was originally made of skin, afterward of wool. In modern times, this name has been given to a woman's garment, a gown with loose plaits on the back; but no garment of this kind is now worn, and the word is in disuse. [See Varro, Strabo, Cluver, Bochart.]

The pillage or plunder of a town or city; or the storm and plunder of a town; as, the sack of Troy. – Dryden.

To put in a sack or in bags. – Betterton.

To plunder or pillage, as a town or city. Rome was twice taken and sacked in the reign of one pope. This word is never, I believe, applied to the robbing of persons, or pillaging of single houses, but to the pillaging of towns and cities; and as towns are usually or often sacked, when taken by assault, the word may sometimes include the sense of taking by storm. The Romans lay under the apprehension of seeing their city sacked by a barbarous enemy. – Addison.

1. A name formerly given to various dry Spanish wines.
   
   
   "Sherris sack." Shak.

   Sack posset, a posset made of sack, and some other ingredients.

2. A bag for holding and carrying goods of any kind; a receptacle made of some kind of pliable material, as cloth, leather, and the like; a large pouch.
3. To put in a sack; to bag; as, to sack corn.
   
   

   Bolsters sacked in cloth, blue and crimson. L. Wallace.

4. The pillage or plunder, as of a town or city; the storm and plunder of a town; devastation; ravage.
   
   

   The town was stormed, and delivered up to sack, -- by which phrase is to be understood the perpetration of all those outrages which the ruthless code of war allowed, in that age, on the persons and property of the defenseless inhabitants, without regard to sex or age. Prescott.

5. To plunder or pillage, as a town or city] to devastate; to ravage.
   
   

   The Romans lay under the apprehensions of seeing their city sacked by a barbarous enemy. Addison.

6. A measure of varying capacity, according to local usage and the substance. The American sack of salt is 215 pounds; the sack of wheat, two bushels.
   
   
   McElrath.
7. To bear or carry in a sack upon the back or the shoulders.
   
   
   [Colloq.]
8. Originally, a loosely hanging garment for women, worn like a cloak about the shoulders, and serving as a decorative appendage to the gown; now, an outer garment with sleeves, worn by women; as, a dressing sack.
   
   
   [Written also sacque.]
9. A sack coat; a kind of coat worn by men, and extending from top to bottom without a cross seam.
10. See 2d Sac, 2.
    
    

    Sack bearer (Zoöl.). See Basket worm, under Basket. -- Sack tree (Bot.), an East Indian tree (Antiaris saccidora) which is cut into lengths, and made into sacks by turning the bark inside out, and leaving a slice of the wood for a bottom. -- To give the sack to or get the sack, to discharge, or be discharged, from employment; to jilt, or be jilted. [Slang]