ravenous

Etymology

Most dictionaries take it as inherited from Middle English ravinous, also ravenous and rauynous,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French ravinos, also ravineus and ravinous,^[2][4][5][6] from raviner (“to seize, pillage; to sweep down”),^[4][5][7] from ravine (“violent rush, robbery”),^[4][5] from Latin rapīna (“plunder, robbery”),^[4][6][8] from rapiō (“to seize, carry off”).^[4][9] The American Heritage Dictionary puts Vulgar Latin *rapīnō between the French verb and the Latin noun.^[6] The Old French adjective described violent, rapacious people and swift-flowing water.^[4] The OED, revising its entry in 2008, instead derives the word within English from ravin and -ous, and only compares the Old French adjective, recorded from the late 12th century.^[10] Johnson derived it from raven².^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of an animal, given to seizing prey, predatory: about 1387, in a sermon by T. Wimbledon, with the spelling rauenes: “siþ rauenes [...] fisches haueþ sum mesure”.^[10][2] Barnhart dates this form probably before 1387, and the spelling ravenous to 1402.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Ayto traces the main modern meaning, “very hungry”, to the idea of predatory animals that seize and eat their prey.^[9] In Middle English the word was already used of animals and of rapacious people,^[2] and the OED records “given to plundering” from about 1425, in Lydgate, a sense now rare.^[10] Etymonline reverses the order, with plundering in the late 14th century and “voracious” in the early 15th.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as “furiously voracious; hungry to rage”,^[11] but the plain sense “famished” came later: the OED finds it in 1648,^[10] and the Shorter Oxford only in the early 18th century.^[12] Topsell used it in 1607 for “mad, rabid”, a rare sense last recorded in 1840.^[10] It also extended to any urgent craving.^[3][13]

Timeline

• c. 1387 – of an animal, predatory, seizing prey.^[10][2]
• c. 1425 – given to plundering; extremely rapacious.^[10] Etymonline dates this sense to the late 14th century.^[4]
• 1577 – voracious, with of.^[10]
• 1607 – mad, rabid (obsolete by 1840).^[10]
• 1648 – exceedingly hungry, famished.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Extremely hungry; famished: After the long hike the children were ravenous.^[8][13][10]
2. Of an animal, a person or an appetite, voracious: a ravenous hunger.^[8][3][10]
3. Intensely eager for satisfaction.^[3][13]
4. (rare) Rapacious; given to plundering.^[10][8][12]

Word family

• ravenously
• ravenousness

Related words

• ravin
• ravine
• rapine
• rapacious
• rape
• rapid
• rapture
• ravage
• ravish
• ravening
• surreptitious
• usurp

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House