ravine

Etymology

It is borrowed from French ravine (“violent rush of water; gully”),^[2][3][4][5] from Old French ravine (“violent rush, impetuosity; robbery, rapine”),^[3][4][5][6] from Latin rapīna (“plunder, robbery”),^[7][4][6][8] a derivative of rapiō (“to seize by force”).^[9][10] Hoad, Ayto and Collins see the sense of violent rush in Romance as due to association with rapidus (“rapid”).^[6][9][10] The OED instead derives the French noun from raviner, and compares ravin (“large ravine”), recorded from 1690;^[2] Etymonline and Barnhart give the English word a double source, ravine and ravin, the latter from raviner.^[3][4] The word is thus at bottom the same as rapine.^[9] Barnhart notes that Middle English had already borrowed ravine from Old French for booty and robbery, but that it does not appear after 1500, so that the 17th- and 18th-century ravine is in effect a fresh borrowing.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Violence, impetus, a violent rush: Hoad and the Shorter Oxford date this to the 15th century,^[6][11] and Dictionary.com to 1400–50.^[12] The OED's first record, from 1545, is of a powerful surge of water, a flood.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word had only a brief and scattered life, meaning a violent rush.^[9][11] In French it had moved from the rushing torrent to the gully the torrent cuts, recorded from 1616,^[2] and English borrowed it again in that sense:^[9][4] the OED's first example, from 1687, is in Paul Rycaut's history of the Turkish Empire,^[2][5] but Etymonline dates the gorge sense to 1760, and Barnhart dates ravine to 1779 with the form ravin a few years earlier.^[3][4] Ayto notes that it became firmly established only in the 19th century.^[9] A rare verb, to cut ravines into, follows in 1858.^[2][11]

Timeline

• 1400s – violence, a violent rush.^[6][11]
• 1545 – a surge of water, a flood (obsolete after 1611).^[2]
• 1687 – a deep narrow gorge cut by running water.^[2][5] Etymonline dates this sense to 1760, and Barnhart to 1779.^[3][4]
• 1858 – verb, to score with ravines.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep, narrow, steep-sided valley or gorge, usually worn by running water, larger than a gully but smaller than a canyon: The trail drops into a wooded ravine.^[5][10][2]

Verb

1. (rare) To cut ravines into land; to score as if with ravines.^[5][11][2]

Word family

• raviney
• ravined

Related words

• rapine
• ravin
• rapid
• rape
• rapture
• ravenous

References

1. ^ a b 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 e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f 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 Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
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. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House