rapacious

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rapāx (“predatory, grasping, inordinately greedy”), with the suffix -ous,^[2][3][4] from rapiō (“to seize, snatch”),^[2][5][6][3] which comes from Proto-Indo-European *rep- (“to snatch”).^[5][3] Barnhart thought it was probably formed from rapacity by a change of suffix, perhaps influenced by French rapace.^[7] The OED compares that French word (from about 1310), Spanish rapaz (about 1140), Portuguese rapaz (1253) and Italian rapace (1313).^[2] Johnson (1755) likewise named both the French and the Latin word.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Excessively greedy, of a people and of their qualities: 1572, in a translation of S. Münster.^[2][9] This date in the revised OED is earlier than Barnhart's 1651,^[7] Etymonline's 1650s^[3] and the mid 17th century of the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English.^[10][4] The noun rapacity is older, from 1543.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart's gloss for the early word is "seizing by force, plundering", close to the Latin verb.^[7] Johnson (1755) defined it as given to plunder, seizing by violence, with quotations from Milton and Pope,^[8] and Collins still gives "practising pillage or rapine".^[11] The sense "greedy" spread from people to their acts and qualities, as early as the first record, and in 1647 to things, especially parts of the body, in Baron's Εροτοπαιγνιον.^[2] The same text has it of animals, predatory, especially of birds of prey,^[2] a sense the OED compares with French rapaces (“birds of prey”) (1768) and with the Latin plural for beasts of prey; it now calls the sense chiefly American.^[2]

Timeline

• 1543 – the noun rapacity.^[7]
• 1572 – inordinately greedy, of people and of their qualities.^[2][9]
• 1647 – of a thing, especially a part of the body; of an animal, predatory.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Excessively greedy or grasping: rapacious landlords.^[11][9][2]
2. Given to plunder or seizing by force.^[11][9][8]
3. Of an animal, especially a bird, living on prey; predatory; now chiefly in American use: a rapacious hawk.^[11][9][2]
4. Ravenous: a rapacious hunger.^[9]

Word family

• rapaciously
• rapaciousness
• unrapacious

Related words

• rapacity
• rapid
• rape
• rapt
• rapture
• rapine
• raptor

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins