Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Plunder; rapine; robbery; rapacity; furious violence.
  • noun Plunder; prey; food obtained with rapacity.
  • noun A bird of the larger species of the genus Corvus, having the feathers of the throat lanceolate and distinct from one another.
  • noun A kind of fish. See sea-raven and Hemitripteridæ.
  • Black as a raven; evenly and glossily or lustrously black: as, raven locks.
  • To seize with rapacity, especially food; prey upon; ravage. See ravined.
  • To subject to rapine or ravage; obtain or take possession of by violence.
  • To devour with great eagerness; eat with voracity; swallow greedily.
  • To prey with rapacity; show rapacity.
  • noun Applied in Australia to one of the larger crows, Corvus coronoides.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of the color of the raven; jet black
  • noun (Zoöl.) A large black passerine bird (Corvus corax), similar to the crow, but larger, and has a harsh, loud call. It is native of the northern parts of Europe, Asia and America, and is noted for its sagacity.
  • noun (Zoöl.) the cormorant.
  • transitive verb To obtain or seize by violence.
  • transitive verb To devour with great eagerness.
  • noun Rapine; rapacity.
  • noun Prey; plunder; food obtained by violence.
  • intransitive verb To prey with rapacity; to be greedy; to show rapacity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Rapine; rapacity.
  • noun Prey; plunder; food obtained by violence.
  • verb archaic To obtain or seize by violence.
  • verb To devour with great eagerness.
  • verb To prey with rapacity; to be greedy; to show rapacity.
  • noun A common name for several, generally large and lustrous black species of birds in the genus Corvus, especially the common raven, Corvus corax.
  • adjective Of the color of the raven; jet-black

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb prey on or hunt for
  • verb feed greedily
  • verb eat greedily
  • verb obtain or seize by violence
  • noun large black bird with a straight bill and long wedge-shaped tail

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French raviner ("rush, seize by force"), itself from ravine ("rapine"), from Latin rapina ("plundering, loot"), itself from rapere ("seize, plunder, abduct")

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English hræfn, from Proto-Germanic *hrabnaz (compare Dutch raaf, German Rabe, Danish ravn), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱorh₂- (compare Middle Irish crú, Latin corvus, Lithuanian šárka ("magpie"), Serbo-Croatian svrȁka ‘id.’, Ancient Greek κόραξ (kórax)), from *ḱer, *ḱor (compare Latin crepare ‘to creak, crack’, Sanskrit kṛ́patē).

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word raven.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Nevermore!

    February 1, 2007

  • I never saw a purple cow

    But if I were to see one

    Would the probability ravens are black

    Have a better chance to be one?

    -Gelett Burgess

    June 18, 2007

  • For those wondering, the poem must be a reference to Hempel's Paradox.

    I thought WeirdNet usually put noun definitions first, but here it's gone for verb definitions—because there are more of them, maybe? Or just because it's WeirdNet?

    August 15, 2008

  • Personally, I think Professor Hempel could benefit by deepening his knowledge of the work of that eminent clergyman, Thomas Bayes.

    Because, as George Box has famously noted:

    "There's no theorem like Bayes Theoreom, like no theorem I know ....

    Everything about it is exci-i-ting...."

    and so on

    and so forth

    August 15, 2008

  • *wondering what Buenos Aires has done to sionnach*

    August 15, 2008

  • *nods gravely*

    August 15, 2008

  • sionnach, do you remember the scarf file?

    September 8, 2008

  • "The Raven" as a limerick

    There once was a girl named Lenore

    And a bird and a bust and a door

    And a guy with depression

    And a whole lot of questions

    And the bird always says "Nevermore."

    (from Famous Poems Rewritten as Limericks)

    October 25, 2008

  • Ha, I like them! Especially:

    There once was a poet named Will

    Who tramped his way over a hill

    And was speechless for hours

    Over some stupid flowers

    This was years before TV, but still.

    October 25, 2008

  • Spy lingo for a male agent who uses the honey trap to entrap women into becoming spies. A spy gigolo, if you will.

    August 26, 2009

  • "The plump, glossy little Eskimo girls with their fish smell, hideous raven hair and guinea pig faces, evoked even less desire in me than Dr. Johnson had."

    Nobakov, Lolita

    March 1, 2011