raven
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: rāʹvən
ipa: /ˈɹeɪvən/
rhymes: -eɪvən
enpr: răvʹən
ipa: /ˈɹævən/
rhymes: -ævən
enpr: rāʹvən
ipa: /ˈɹeɪvən/
rhymes: -eɪvən
Forms: form: ravens
form: ravening
form: ravened
form: ravened
form: ravin
form: ravine
Etymology: From Middle English ravene, ravine, from Old French raviner (“rush, seize by force”), itself from ravine (“rapine”), from Latin rapīna (“plundering, loot”), itself from rapere (“seize, plunder, abduct”).
Senses: examples: text: […] ravening and destroying his goodes, they spoyled his wife and chyldren of all theyr apparell […]
ref: 1560, John Daus, transl., Sleidane's Commentaries:
text: Hee … sought to eat him up, and to raven all hee could get from him.
ref: 1621, Kaewill, David's Vow, page 237
text: Nor had the Wolf raven'd away so much as one.
ref: 1657, G. Thornley, Daphnis & Chloe, page 175:
text: That they might not be disturbed whilst busie ravening after Booty.
ref: 1670, Cotton, Espernon, III, ix, 442
text: ... his Croats and loose hordes went openly ravening about, bent on mere 'housebreaking, street-robbery and insolent violence.
ref: 1856, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II, of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, page 66:
qualifier: "away"; etc; "away"; etc
glosses: To obtain or seize by violence; to plunder.
raw_tags: with "from"
examples: text: And the hound Time, when all the Worlds and cities are swept away whereon he used to raven, having no more to devour, shall suddenly die.
ref: 1905, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], The Gods of Pegāna, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews, […], →OCLC, page 93:
text: A Lion new returnde from rauening pray [sic] […]
ref: 1615, Brathwait, Strappado, page 278
text: ... the Bowels, thence to diffuse itself throughout, mix with the vital spirit, and convert that kindly heat which should animate, into those wild irregular flames which ravine and consume. And this is done by that Pestilential spirit[…]
ref: 1671, The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety … written by … Richard Allestree[?], page 247:
text: Clusters of grapes, the which they raven'd quick.
ref: 1818, Keats, Endym., III, 510
qualifier: "down"; "in"; etc; "down"; "in"; etc
glosses: To devour with great eagerness; to feed (on something) hungrily or greedily.
raw_tags: with "up"
examples: text: I refer to the danger of keeping a dog of this nature and disposition in a bedroom, where it can spring out ravening on anyone who enters.
ref: 1938, P.G. Woodhouse, The Code of the Woosters:
glosses: To prey on with rapacity; to attack with violence in order to, or as if to, devour.
raw_tags: with "on"
examples: text: […] because hogs are commonly rauening for their meat, more then other cattel, it is meet therefore to haue them ringed, or else they wil doe much hurt in digging and turning vp corne fieldes […]
ref: 1587, Leonard Mascall, “The nature and qualities of hogges, and also the gouernement thereof”, in The First Booke of Cattell, London:
text: They passed along towards the great hall-door, where the winds howled and ravened for their prey […]
ref: 1852, Elizabeth Gaskell, “The Old Nurse’s Story”, in The Old Nurse’s Story and Other Tales:
text: The Greek were-wolf is closely related to the vampire. The lycanthropist falls into a cataleptic trance, during which his soul leaves his body, enters that of a wolf and ravens for blood.
ref: 1865, Sabine Baring-Gould, chapter 8, in The Book of Were-Wolves, London: Smith, Elder & Co., page 114:
text: On one side the great temple where you can gather the good harvest—on the other a dirty little scandal that you’ve nosed out to fling to paper scavengers who feed it to their readin’ millions ravening for pornographic dirt.
ref: 1931, James B. Fagan, The Improper Duchess, London: Victor Gollancz, published 1932, act 3, page 237:
glosses: To show rapacity; to be greedy (for something).
Related terms: ravener
ravening
ravenous
ravenously
ravenousness