Etymology: Old Engish sacc (masculine), < Latin saccus bag, sack, sackcloth (French sac, from 11–12th cent., Provençal sac, Spanish saco, Portuguese saco, Italian sacco), < Greek σάκκος, < Hebrew (? Phoenician) saq = Jewish Aramaic saq, saqqā, Syriac saq, saqå, Assyrian saqqu. The word appears in most of the Germanic languages: Gothic sakkus sackcloth is probably < Greek, but in the other languages the proximate source is Latin: Middle Dutch sak (Dutch zak), Old High German sac, sach, accusative plural secchi (Middle High German sac, modern German sack bag), Old Norse sekk-r sack (Swedish säkk, Danish sæk). The Old Norse and some of the Old High German forms, and perhaps the Old English sæcc (confined to the sense ‘sackcloth’) indicate a prehistoric type *sakki-z: compare medieval Latin ‘saccia, σάκκος’ in a Latin-Greek glossary. The word is found also as Irish and Gaelic sac, Welsh sach, Hungarian zsak, Russian sak, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Albanian sak, which are all directly or indirectly from the Latin or Greek.

Etymology: < French sac (in phrase mettre à sac), < Italian sacco (= Spanish saco, Portuguese saque), of doubtful origin. By some scholars it is regarded as identical with sacco bag, sack n.¹, or as a verbal noun from the derivative verb saccare to put in a bag, with reference to the putting up of plunder into bags or sacks. This is possible, but evidence is wanting.

Etymology: Early 16th cent. wyne seck, < French vin sec, ‘dry wine’. Compare German sekt, earlier (17th cent.) sek, Dutch sek.Vin sec is given by Sherwood 1632 (but not by Cotgrave 1611–32) as the French equivalent of ‘sacke’. According to Littré, vin sec meant only ‘dry wine’ in the current English sense, i.e. wine ‘free from sweetness and fruity flavour’; there appears to be no ground for the assumption made in Grimm's Deutsches Wörterbuch, s.v. Sekt (and in earlier German dictionaries from the 17th cent. onwards), that it at some time meant ‘wine from dried or partially dried grapes’. Some difficulty therefore arises from the fact that sack in English, as well as sekt in German, was often described as a sweet wine (so already in our earliest quot.), though Shakespeare's mention of ‘sack and sugar’ shows that it was not always such even in the 16th cent. It is possible that before the recorded history of the name begins it had already been extended from the ‘dry’ wines of a certain class to the whole class, and had afterwards come to be applied especially to those wines of the class which were originally excluded. But evidence is wanting. The Spanish *vino seco , Italian *vino secco , usually cited by etymologists, appear not to be recognized by the lexicographers of the respective languages. The form sack is not a normal development from the original seck . It may perhaps be explained by the fact that in the 16th cent. seck was a provincial form of sack n.¹; persons who were accustomed to regard ‘seck’ as a mispronunciation of sack may have applied the supposed correction to the name of the wine. It is not, in the present state of the evidence, probable that there was ever any confusion with the Old French vin de sac (‘Saccatum, vin de buffet, vin de sac’, in a gloss quoted by Godefroy), Old High German sacwîn (written saicwin), Middle Dutch sacwijn, which according to early explanations meant a beverage made by steeping the lees of wine in water, and then straining through a bag.

Etymology: Compare German französischer sack (Grimm), Dutch zak , both applied in the 18th cent. to a French fashion of gown then worn by ladies. This, with Pepys' spelling (quot. 1669 at sense 1), would seem to indicate adoption < French sac, but the French lexicographers do not recognize the word in this sense.It is possible that both the senses below, or sense 2 only, may have originated as transferred uses of sack n.¹ To place them under that word would however be inconvenient, on account of the marked divergence of application, and the fact that the pseudo-French spelling sacque is still frequent in both senses. Sense 2 is given by M. Heyne (in Grimm) as a modern tailors' use of German sack (also sackpaletot ‘sack’ overcoat); but this may possibly be from English. In the following quot. 1390-1 sackes may denote some article of clothing, but its sense is obscure, and it is not certain that it is English:1390–1 Earl Derby's Exp. (Camden) 112 Et eiusdem pipours et thrumpours pro vj. sackes de fostyon ex precepto domini, lx s.

Etymology: < sack n.¹: compare Latin saccāre to strain through a bag (medieval Latin also to put into a bag), Middle Dutch sacken (Dutch zakken), German sacken to put into a bag.