ravage

Etymology

It is borrowed from French ravager (“to lay waste, devastate”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} recorded in Middle French from before 1507,^[2] from ravage (“destruction”), the source of the English noun.^[2][3][5] This noun, recorded in Middle French in 1355, is formed from ravir (“to seize, take away”) and -age,^[2][5][7][8] and Skeat traces the verb to Latin rapiō (“to seize”).^[9] The OED compares Old French revagier (“to pull out vines”) of about 1300, apparently altered after the prefix re-.^[2] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English instead take the noun as an alteration of ravine (“rush of water”), with the suffix replaced.^[10][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To lay waste land or a country by deliberate destruction or plunder: 1602, in T. Lodge's translation of Josephus.^[2][5] Etymonline and Barnhart, working from Cotgrave's dictionary, date both verb and noun only to the 1610s or 1611.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant deliberate wasting of a territory, and only later more generally causing severe damage;^[2] from 1604, in Dallington, it could be intransitive, to wreak havoc or go about destroying.^[2] The noun followed in 1611, with Cotgrave recording both a flood, a rare sense that reflects the French use for violent flooding from 1543, and destruction by violence.^[2][11] It was extended in 1690, in Locke, to the effects of disease, time or the weather, just when French gained the disease sense,^[2] and it is now usually plural in the sense of a single destructive event;^[2] Etymonline records ravages by the 1630s.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "spoil; ruin; waste" and the verb as to lay waste, sack, pillage or plunder.^[13] Merriam-Webster's synonym note says the word implies violent, often cumulative destruction that cannot be repaired.^[5]

Timeline

• 1602 – transitive verb, to devastate or lay waste.^[2][5]
• 1604 – intransitive verb, to commit ravages.^[2]
• 1611 – noun, destruction or devastation; also a flood (obsolete by 1677).^[2][4]
• before 1627 – noun, an instance of destruction, now usually in the plural.^[2]
• 1690 – noun, the destructive effects of disease, time or weather.^[2]
• 1814 – verb, to strip or despoil of something.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To devastate or cause severe damage to: A wildfire ravaged the valley.^[14][5][2]
2. To commit destruction; to plunder or pillage.^[5][2][11]

Noun

1. Violent destruction or devastation, or the damage it leaves.^[5][2]
2. (usually plural) The destructive effects of something: the ravages of time.^[14][2][11]
3. (obsolete, 1611–1677) A flood or inundation.^[2][11]

Word family

• ravager
• ravagement
• unravaged

Related words

• rapid
• ravish
• ravine

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v 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 c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins