rapacious

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English

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WOTD – 14 August 2008

Etymology

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Perhaps from rapacity +‎ -ous, in any case ultimately from Latin rapāx (“grasping, greedy”).

Pronunciation

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  • (UK, US) IPA(key): /ɹəˈpeɪ.ʃəs/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -eɪʃəs

Adjective

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rapacious (comparative more rapacious, superlative most rapacious)

  1. (also figurative) Voracious; avaricious.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:greedy
    • 1787, Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 6: Concerning Dangers from Dissensions Between the States:
      To presume a want of motives for such contests [of power between states] as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.
    • 1952 June, B. D. J. Walsh, “The Waveney Valley Line”, in Railway Magazine, page 365:
      Relations between the Waveney Valley Railway and the E.C.R. [Eastern Counties Railway] soon became strained, because of the rapacious attitude adopted by the latter, and to the mismanagement which it displayed in working the smaller company's line.
    • 2021 March 16, Noam Cohen, “Wikipedia Is Finally Asking Big Tech to Pay Up”, in Wired‎[1], →ISSN:
      Big Tech companies, on the other hand, have proven themselves to be rapacious capitalists—they take as much as they can and ask for permission later.
    • 2022, “Nevermore”, performed by Lamb of God:
      The rapacious maw of our despair
  2. Given to taking by force or plundering; aggressively greedy.
    • 1910, Niccolò Machiavelli, “Chapter XIX”, in Ninian Hill Thomson, transl., The Prince:
      A Prince […] sooner becomes hated by being rapacious and by interfering with the property and with the women of his subjects, than in any other way.
  3. (of an animal, usually a bird) Subsisting off live prey.
    • 1827, James Fenimore Cooper, “Chapter XIII”, in The Prairie:
      Even the rapacious birds appeared to comprehend the nature of the ceremony, for […] they once more began to make their airy circuits above the place […]

Usage notes

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  • The use of this term for animals other than birds is dated.
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Translations

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