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  1. reave love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To seize and carry off forcibly.
  2. v. To deprive (one) of something; bereave.
  3. v. To rob, plunder, or pillage.
  4. v. Archaic To break or tear apart.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To take away by force or stealth; carry off as booty; take violently; purloin, especially in a foray: with a thing as object.
  2. To take away; remove; abstract; draw off.
  3. To rob; plunder; dispossess; bereave: with a person as object.
  4. To tear up, as the rafters or roof of a house.
  5. To ravel; pull to pieces, as a textile fabric.
  6. To practise plundering or pillaging; carry off stolen property.

Wiktionary

  1. v. archaic To plunder, pillage, rob, pirate, or remove.
  2. v. archaic To split, tear, break apart.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To take away by violence or by stealth; to snatch away; to rob; to despoil; to bereave. [Archaic].

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. steal goods; take as spoils

Etymologies

  1. Alteration of rive by confusion with the above. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English reven, to plunder, from Old English rēafian; see reup- in Indo-European roots.Middle English reven, possibly alteration (influenced by reven, to plunder) of Old Norse rīfa, to rive. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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  • yarb One day I saw an old frayed but strong rope on this path, cast away on a tree stump, and I thought: yes, that is the awful end of such thoughts. Had I actually been tempted to kill myself? Aghast at the thought I took the rope back and reaved it up for use.

    - Malcolm Lowry, The Forest Path to the Spring Jul 13, 2008

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‘reave’ has been looked up 2629 times, added to 14 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 8.