Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To seize and carry away by force.
- v. To rape; violate.
- v. To overwhelm with emotion; enrapture. See Synonyms at enrapture.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To seize and carry off; transport or take away forcibly; snatch away.
- To transport mentally; enrapture; bring into a state of ecstasy, as of delight or fear.
- To deprive by seizure; dispossess violently: with of.
- To violate the chastity of; commit rape upon; deflower.
- n. Ravishment; ecstasy; a transport or rapture.
Wiktionary
- v. To seize and carry away by violence; to snatch by force.
- v. transitive, usually passive To transport with joy or delight; to delight to ecstasy.
- v. transitive To rape.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To seize and carry away by violence; to snatch by force.
- v. To transport with joy or delight; to delight to ecstasy.
- v. To have carnal knowledge of (a woman) by force, and against her consent; to rape.
WordNet 3.0
- v. force (someone) to have sex against their will
- v. hold spellbound
Etymologies
- From Anglo-Norman, from Old French raviss-, present participle stem of ravir ("to seize, take away hastily"), from Late Latin *rapire, from Latin rapere. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English ravisshen, from Old French ravir, raviss-, from Vulgar Latin *rapīre, from Latin rapere, to seize; see rep- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Encapsulated in the root of the word "ravish" is an etymological range of emotional approximations from rapacious to rape, from rapt to rapture--and a word with that sort of seed and yield reveals how intrinsically complex Donne saw his relationship to God.”
Great Regulars: Consider, for instance, the word [John] Donne
“Despite the name (which, salads apart, spell-check always wants to change to "ravish"), it is a good site: quiet, unfussy, well organised and functional (though as so new, many functions are still under development).”
“The comparison is grounded on the double meaning of the word "ravish" for it signifies the act of rape as well as the act of violently seizing and carrying away someone or something.”
The State of Things: Olaudah Equiano and the Volatile Politics of Heterocosmic Desire
“Did you know the original meaning of "ravish" is rape too?”
“xbrl, there's a fine line between 'ravish' fantasies and 'rape' fantasies.”
“That's my kind of wine note, though my thought was—leave the table upright and ravish someone on top of it.”
The Wall Street Journal: The 1996 Champagnes: Great, but Just How Great?
“The function of Chivaric politeness and gallantry in todays world reassures women that the gallant chivalrous male is likely not going to beat or ravish them.”
Tom McIntyre Explains His Picks for our 2009 Hunting and Fishing Heroes and Villians Face-Off
“Your hours will pass in dread and misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your happiness for ever.”
“And then they both ravish each other in the woods, right?”
“For a moment, Lena considered sucking up her feelings and letting Jason ravish her in hopes that he could lift her libido to meet his.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ravish’.
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fight
words for fighting
( open list, randomness )bout, fight, match, smackdown, blue, stoush, battle, clash, fuss, fray, ruckus, tussle and 115 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Words that end in "-ish" but aren't a...
embellish, flourish, garnish, rubbish, nourish, admonish, punish, finish, blemish, abolish, accomplish, parish and 41 more...
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words
my words. my mind. my gosh.
try not to enjoy it too much.git, ghoti, sauce, quail, querulous, quarrelsome, reliability, untoward, incongruities, fission, fanatic, apple and 206 more...
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Serendipity's Words
defenestration, mercurial, syzygy, wicked, iniquitous, metastable, demimonde, entropic, ephemeral, irreligious, frisbee, manifold and 474 more...
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generationnext's Words
petulant, vehement, pensive, lascivious, vacillate, histrionic, satiated, svelte, lithe, zeitgeist, viscous, sommelier and 526 more...
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Wordwild's Delights
Delightful words to read and use
plangent, ribald, titubant, sidereal, pelagic, improvident, dolorous, parlous, baleful, precatory, pied, mephitic and 247 more...
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vinyl's Words
deliverator, finna, metric fuckton, fag, hyphy, ginormous, sacrilicious, fantabulous, macaca, n-word, pterodactyl, genious and 560 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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Intellectual masturbation
descant, leitmotif, scrumptious, adroit, diatribe, sesquipedalian, tatterdemalion, succulent, carnal, chicane, reminisce, paraphernalia and 147 more...
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good words
words that are mostly fun to say or just lovely
undulate, voluptuous, whimsy, parse, dank, cerulean, peen, traipsing, listless, coup de grace, reconnoiter, mercurial and 499 more...
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mouserie's list
Words that I find are amazing
vicissitude, mouse, indubitably, epistolary, awesome, tipperary, shadow, grimoire, hippopotomonstros..., novel, satire, confessional and 91 more...
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Palabrarium
The delicious wonderful words that I love terribly dearly and without which, the world would be a less inventive and worthwhile place. Also, ostensibly, the reason 1984 and esperanto secretly suck.
panoply, footpad, piccalilli, snickersnee, marl, hispid, greengage, slumgullion, golliwog, mumbletypeg, circumlocution, quiescent and 366 more...
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Something Vishy
peevish, ravish, vitiate, vishnu, lavish, dovish, dervish, slavish, knavish, vicious
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AeidaMousa's Words
muse, evanescent, alabaster, onomatopoeia, defenestration, ephemeral, ethereal, phantasmic, fantasia, heliotrope, orality, enigma and 35 more...
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Words I Love
moist, awkward, phantasmagoria, smarmy, faux, equestrian, zamboni, nub, seltzer, swagger, foci, connote and 62 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ravish.
johnmperry "Her looks were ravishing, but when it came to ravishing, looks weren't enough."
- my best friend used to say that, I wonder where he got it from!
Maybe I'll just say
- Louis Zukofsky and leave it at that. He seems to have supplied quite a lot of shite here. Jun 20, 2008
asativum Nor peevish. Jun 18, 2008
Prolagus Not to be confused with radish. Jun 18, 2008