原指奖赏，词源不详。词义受boot（益处）影响。词义由奖赏到战利品可参照英法16，17世纪官方文件letter of marque, 私掠许可证。当时英法政府为发展海上力量，打击对方，鼓励民船海盗船可以对过往商船进行合法抢劫，所掠财物部分作为奖赏。
英文词源
booty
booty: [15] Booty has no connection with boots. It came into English as butin (it did not finally lose its n until the 18th century), a borrowing from Old French butin, but Old French had got it from Middle Low German būte ‘exchange’ (whence German beute and Dutch buit ‘loot’), pointing to a prehistoric Germanic source *būtiōn. => filibuster, freebooter
booty (n.)
"plunder, gain, profit," mid-15c., from Old French butin "booty" (14c.), from a Germanic source akin to Middle Low German bute "exchange." Influenced in form and sense by boot (n.2) and in form by nouns ending in -y. Meaning "female body considered as a sex object" is 1920s, black slang.
双语例句
1. Troops destroyed the capital and confiscated many works of art as war booty.
军队摧毁了这座都城，并把大量艺术品收缴为战利品。
来自柯林斯例句
2. It is impossible yet to estimate booty and war material capured.