ravish

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ravishen,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French raviss-, the extended stem of ravir (“to seize, snatch, carry away”),^[4][2][5][6] from Vulgar Latin *rapīre, an alteration with change of conjugation of Latin rapere (“to seize, carry off”),^[4][7][3][8] the source of rape and rapid.^[4][9][7] The American Heritage Dictionary takes the Latin verb back to the root Proto-Indo-European *rep-.^[3] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from the early 12th century,^[10][4] and by the late 13th century the French verb could also mean to plunder, to enrapture and to rape.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To drag off or carry away a woman by force: before 1325, in the Statutes of the Realm,^[4] about 1300 in Etymonline, which adds that the earliest uses sometimes imply rape.^[7] Barnhart dates ravyshen to about 1303, in Mannyng's Handlyng Synne, and ravissen, to plunder, to about 1300.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The verb arrived with a wide range of violent senses, from plundering a place (about 1325 to 1674) to dragging off a person or thing.^[4] The sense of rape appears before 1387, in Trevisa,^[4] though Etymonline dates it to the mid-15th century.^[7] A religious use, removing someone from earth to heaven or transporting them in spirit, is recorded from about 1330,^[4] and it led to the modern sense of filling someone with ecstasy, recorded about 1390.^[4] Barnhart dates the emotional sense earlier, probably before 1300, and finds ravishing for "delightful" about 1380 in Chaucer's Parlement of Foules, after an older ravishing, seizing on prey, of about 1340.^[6] Chaucer used the verb 23 times, for abducting, stealing and entrancing alike.^[11] Middle English could also use it for plagiarizing.^[7] Johnson (1755) listed rape first, then taking away by violence, then delighting to rapture.^[12] The older force of seizing is now archaic,^[13][3] and the New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) marks the sexual sense as dated and the sense of delight as literary.^[14] In Yorkshire dialect the word meant to use up wastefully.^[15] The rare noun, the action of ravishing, dates from 1636.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1325 – to carry off a woman by force (obsolete after 1767).^[4]
• c. 1325 – to plunder or lay waste to a place (obsolete after 1674).^[4]
• c. 1330 – to carry away a person by force; to remove from earth, especially to heaven.^[4]
• before 1382 – to seize as plunder.^[4]
• before 1387 – to rape.^[4]
• c. 1390 – to fill with ecstasy or delight.^[4]
• 1636 – noun, the action of ravishing.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fill with intense delight; to enrapture, often in the passive: The audience was ravished by her singing.^{[13][8][3][4]}
2. (dated) To rape.^{[3][13][14][4]}
3. (archaic) To seize and carry off a person by force.^{[3][13][16][4]}
4. (archaic) To seize a thing as plunder or take it away by violence.^[8][16][4]
5. (rare) To remove someone from earth, especially to heaven, or to transport them in spirit.^[8][16][4]
6. (obsolete, before 1325–1767) To abduct a woman.^[8][4]
7. (obsolete, c. 1325–1674) To plunder or lay waste to a place.^[4][16]

Noun

1. (rare) The action of ravishing, or an instance of it.^[4]

Word family

• ravisher
• ravishment
• ravishedly
• enravish
• ravishing

Related words

• rape
• usurp
• rapid
• rapture
• ravin
• ravenous
• ravage

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press