konfiski

A false seam, and a tempting one. Konfiski opens invitingly into kon- plus fiski, and both halves look plausible for about two seconds: Esperanto has a real prefix-shaped kun-, and fisko is even a word - the public treasury. It still does not work. Esperanto has no prefix kon- at all, and there is no verb fiski. Konfisk- is one root, borrowed whole from Latin, and the fact that Latin built it out of con- and fiscus is Latin's business, not Esperanto's. The rule holds every time: if the leftover half is not a live Esperanto root, you are looking at a borrowing.

What is genuinely worth knowing is the basket. A Roman fiscus was a woven container, the sort of thing you carried money in, and by the imperial period the emperor's private treasury was called the fiscus by metonymy the way Whitehall means the civil service. Confiscare was to move property into that basket. So the word carries its whole picture with it: the state's hamper, and your things going into it.

Register, and the neighbours. Konfiski is a legal and official word. The state, a court, a customs officer, a teacher with a phone - somebody with authority takes something away, lawfully or at least with the appearance of it. Ŝteli is to steal, which is the same act without the authority. Rabi is to take by open force. Konfiskaĵo is the confiscated item and konfiskado the practice. If what you want is nationalisation of a whole industry rather than seizure of one thing, the word is ŝtatigi.