ravin
/ˈɹæv(ə)n/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.01 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Property obtained or seized by force or violence; booty, plunder, spoils.
Archaic; Countable; Literary; Uncountable
noun
Of a (predatory) animal: seizing or devouring of food or prey; predation.
Archaic; Literary; Uncountable
noun
Gluttony, greed, rapacity; also, the quality of being predatory; predatoriness.
Archaic; Literary; Uncountable
noun
Obtaining or seizing property by force or violence; pillage, plunder, robbery; (countable, chiefly in the plural) an instance of this.
Archaic; Literary; Obsolete; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "[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: […]"
- "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."
- "The marvellous ſpeedy grovvth of Birds that are hatched in Neſts, and fed by the Old ones there, […] ſeems to me an Argument of Providence deſigning thereby their preſervation, that they might not lie long in a condition expoſed to the ravine of any Vermine that may find them, being utterly unable to eſcape or ſhift for themſelves."
- "[T]he clustered cottages, […] with their pastured flocks around them, safe from the eagle's stoops and the wolf's ravin, […]"
- "[W]ith hot Ravine fir'd, enſanguined Man / Is novv become the Lyon of the Plain, / And vvorſe."
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).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈɹæv(ə)n/
- British English: /ˈɹæv(ɪ)n/
Usage
Inflected Forms
ravins (plural)
raven (alternative)
ravine (alternative)
more ravin (comparative)
most ravin (superlative)
ravins (present, singular)
ravining (participle, present)
ravined (participle, past)
ravined (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
ravined (first person, past)