Ransack carries the image of a house being roughly
disarranged, as might happen when you are frantically searching for something.
This is appropriate given the word's origin. Ransack derives, via Middle English
ransaken, from Old Norse rannsaka; the rann in rannsaka means
"house." The second half of rannsaka is related to an Old English
word, sēcan, meaning "to seek." But our modern use of the word isn't
restricted to houses. You can ransack a drawer, a suitcase, or even the
contents of a book (for information). A now-obsolete frequentative form of
ransack, ransackle, gave us our adjective ramshackle.
