Word: ravin Part of Speech: noun Etymology: The noun is derived from Middle English ravin, ravine, raven (“rapine, robbery; rape; force, violence; greed, rapacity; stolen goods, booty, plunder; prey, quarry; pursuit of prey; predatoriness, voracity”), from Anglo-Norman ravein, raveine, ravine (“rapine, robbery; rape; force, violence; greed, rapacity; impetuousness; stolen goods”), Middle French ravine, and Old French ravine (“rapine, robbery; force, violence; impetuousness”), from Latin rapīna (“pillage, plunder, robbery, rapine; booty, plunder”), from rapiō (“to abduct, carry off; to grab, snatch; to rape; to steal”) (from Proto-Italic *rapjō (“to seize, take away”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₁rep- (“to snatch”)) + -īna (suffix forming abstract nouns). The adjective is derived from Middle English ravin, ravine (“predatory; ravenous”), from Middle English ravin, ravine (noun): see above. The verb is not attested before the 16th century, but words like Middle English raviner, ravinour (“plunderer; robber; rapist; predator”), ravening (“act of robbery; predatoriness, rapacity”, noun), and ravening, ravining (“(adjective) savage, ravening; (noun) preceded by ‘the’: the devil”) suggest that it existed in the 14th and 15th centuries, and was probably derived from the noun. Compare Middle French raviner (“to make furrows”), Old French raviner (“to take by force; to rush; to stream”) (modern French raviner). Pronunciation: /ˈɹæv(ɪ)n/, /ˈɹæv(ə)n/ 1. Property obtained or seized by force or violence; booty, plunder, spoils. Labels: archaic, countable, literary, uncountable Example: Petra, through its rocky ramparts, was well suited, as Nineveh in the huge circuit of its massive walls was well built, to be the receptacle of ravin. 2. Of a (predatory) animal: seizing or devouring of food or prey; predation. Labels: archaic, literary, uncountable Example: [T]he rage and furie of the barbarous nations brake out into a flaming fire: and like as vvild beaſts, vvont to live of ravine and prey vvhen keepers be ſlacke and negligent, […] vvithout regard of life, run upon vvhole heards and flockes of cattell: […] Example: The Kites and Rauens are not farre avvay, / Nor beaſts of rauin that ſhall make a prey / Of a poore corpſe, vvhich they from me ſhall haue, / And their foule bovvels ſhall be all thy graue. 3. Gluttony, greed, rapacity; also, the quality of being predatory; predatoriness. Labels: archaic, figuratively, literary, uncountable Example: [W]ith hot Ravine fir'd, enſanguined Man / Is novv become the Lyon of the Plain, / And vvorſe. Example: No appetite, that like the unchilded sea / […] hungers for such orts / As riot spares lean want, is yet so wide, / So vast of ravin or so blind in scope, / As can abide the chewed and perished meats / That relish died upon. 4. A predatory animal; a predator. Labels: archaic, countable, literary, obsolete, rare Example: […] Nurſe Amaranta / In a remove from Mora to Corduba / VVas ſeiz'd on by a fierce and hungry Bear, / She vvas the Ravins prey, as heaven ſo vvould, […] 5. Obtaining or seizing property by force or violence; pillage, plunder, robbery; (countable, chiefly in the plural) an instance of this. Labels: archaic, literary, obsolete, uncountable Example: The. iiii. rule. […] If thou withdrawe thine handes, and forbere, / The rauens of anyething: remember than, / How his [Jesus's] innocent handes nailed were. Example: Ceſtreus, a kind of codfiſh, which neuer eateth any other fyſhe, wherof came this prouerbe, Ceſtreus ieiunae, the codde faſteth, ſpoken of good and iuſt men, whiche do noe raueyn nor taketh any other mens gooddes from theim. 6. That which a predatory animal seizes for food; prey; also (hunting) an animal which is hunted; quarry. Labels: archaic, literary, obsolete, uncountable Example: [H]is deepe deuouring iavves / VVyde gaped, like the grieſly mouth of hell, / Through vvhich into his darke abyſſe all rauin fell. Example: To mee, vvho vvith eternal Famin pine, / Alike is Hell, or Paradiſe, or Heaven, / There beſt, vvhere moſt vvith ravin I may meet; / VVhich here, though plenteous, all too little ſeems / To ſtuff this Mavv, this vaſt unhide-bound Corps.