rapacity

English

Etymology

From rapac(ious) +‎ -ity, from Middle French rapacité, from Latin rapacitas.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹəˈpæ.sɪ.ti/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æsɪti
• Hyphenation: ra‧pa‧ci‧ty

Noun

rapacity (countable and uncountable, plural rapacities)

1. The quality of being rapacious; voracity.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:greed

   • 1791, Oliver Goldsmith, “Of Animals of the Hare Kind”, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume IV, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, page 3:

     Animals of the hare kind, like all others that feed entirely upon vegetables, are inoffenſive and timorous. As Nature furniſhes them vvith a moſt abundant ſupply, they have not that rapacity after food remarkable in ſuch as are often ſtinted in their proviſion.

   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 212:

     A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse.

Translations

greed

• Bulgarian: алчност (bg) f (alčnost), ненаситност (bg) f (nenasitnost)
• French: rapacité (fr) f
• German: Raubgier (de) f
• Greek: αρπακτικότητα (el) f (arpaktikótita)
• Kurdish:

  Northern Kurdish: hesûdî (ku) f

• Romanian: rapacitate (ro) f
• Swedish: girighet (sv) c, rovgirighet (sv) c
• Ukrainian: жадібність f (žadibnistʹ), загребущість f (zahrebuščistʹ)