ravin

/ˈɹæv(ɪ)n/

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 (“predato

adj

  1. Ravenous.“[…] I am the cauſe / His death vvas ſo effected: Better 'tvvere / I met the rauine Lyon vvhen he roar'd / VVith ſharpe conſtraint of hunger: better 'tvvere, / That all the miſeries vvhich nature ovves / VVere mine at once.”

noun

  1. Property obtained or seized by force or violence; booty, plunder, spoils.“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.“[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: […]”
  3. Gluttony, greed, rapacity; also, the quality of being predatory; predatoriness.“[W]ith hot Ravine fir'd, enſanguined Man / Is novv become the Lyon of the Plain, / And vvorſe.”
  4. A predatory animal; a predator.“[…] 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.“The. iiii. rule. […] If thou withdrawe thine handes, and forbere, / The rauens of anyething: remember than, / How his [Jesus's] innocent handes nailed were.”
  6. That which a predatory animal seizes for food; prey; also (hunting) an animal which is hunted; quarry.“[H]is deepe deuouring iavves / VVyde gaped, like the grieſly mouth of hell, / Through vvhich into his darke abyſſe all rauin fell.”

verb

  1. Sometimes followed by away or from: to obtain or seize (something, especially property) by force or violence; to plunder.“[They] aſſaulted by night a certen aũciẽt [auncient] gentleman at home in his owne houſe, which had done thē [them] no diſpleaſure, and being a ſlepe in his bed at their cõming [comming], whan he had hardly eſcaped awaye half naked, rauening and diſtroying his goodes, they ſpoyled his wyfe and chyldren of all theyr apparell, and threatening them ofte with death, left thẽ [them] ſtarck naked, in ſo”
  2. Sometimes followed by down, up, or (obsolete) in: to eat (something, such as food or prey) greedily; to devour, to wolf down.“Her princes in the middes thereof are like vvolues, rauening yͤ pray [prey] to ſhed blood, and to ſhed blood, and to deſtroye ſoules for their ovvne couetous lucre.”
  3. To absorb or take in (something, such as information) greedily; also, to approach or pounce on (someone) like prey.“[S]he fenced them in their need / With iron-handed Duty's sternest creed, / 'Gainst Self's lean wolf that ravens word and deed.”
  4. Followed by about, after, or for: to go after or seek for something, especially booty or spoils; to maraud, to plunder; also (generally), to move about wildly and cause damage; to rampage.“Transferd by fortune to the Scottiſh meare, / To ranſack that, as it had been rauin'd heere.”
  5. To eat greedily; also, followed by on or upon: of an animal: to prey on.“He is an horrible lurtcher ſe howe he rauyneth: […]”
  6. Sometimes followed by about or on: to move about searching for food or prey ravenously.“Beniamin ſhal rauine as a vvolfe: in the morning, he ſhal deuoure the praie, and at night he ſhal diuide the ſpoile.”