Obs. Also 5 -synie, -cynye, 7 -cinie. [ad. L. latrōcini-um highway-robbery, band of robbers, f. latro: see next. Cf. LARCENY.]
1. Highway-robbery, brigandage, freebooting, plundering.
c. 1430. Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, III. xvii. (1869), 144. Coutte bourse it is cleped, and latrosynie the defamede.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 263. These … possessed the Mountains and Desert places of Thessaly, being given to all manner of Latrociny and Deprædation.
1619. Purchas, Microcosmus, xlvii. 438. Publike Latrocinies, Rapes, Murthers, Hell vpon Earth.
1657. Thornley, trans. Longus’ Daphnis & Chloe, 40. Escaping two dangers at once, shipwreck and latrociny.
2. A band of robbers. In quots. transf.
1474. Caxton, Chesse, IV. i. (1860), I viij b. A royame wyth out habundaunce of goodes … may better be callyd a latrocynye or a nest of theuys than a royame.
c. 1643. Maximes Unfolded, 35. Because the faction sought by force to prevaile, it was aptly called a Latrocinie.
1732. Stackhouse, Hist. Bible, III. v. (1752), I. 389. When … Oppression rul’d, and the Government was turn’d into a mere Latrociny.
