rapine

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See also: rapiñe, and rapiñé

English

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WOTD – 17 September 2012

Etymology

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From Middle English rapyne, from Old French rapine, from Latin rapīna, from rapiō. Doublet of rape and ravine.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈɹæpaɪn/
  • Audio (US):(file)

Noun

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rapine (countable and uncountable, plural rapines)

  1. The seizure of someone's property by force; pillage; plunder.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene ii:
      This countrey ſwarmes with vile outragious men,
      That liue by rapine and by lawleſſe ſpoile,
      Fit ſouldiers for the wicked Tamburlaine.
    • c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
      Good Rapine, stab him: he is a ravisher.
    • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Author’s Great Love of His Native Country. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms), page 262:
      And it was peculiar in their Temper, that they were fonder of what they could get by Rapine or Stealth at a greater diſtance, than much better Food provided for them at home.
    • 1848, Thomas Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession Of James II:
      men who were impelled to war quite as much by the desire of rapine as by the desire of glory
    • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01:
      The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.
    • 1951, Isaac Asimov, Foundation (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), Part V: “The Merchant Princes”, Ch.10, pp.157–158:
      “You could join Wiscard’s remnants in the Red Stars. I don’t know, though, if you’d call that fighting or piracy. Or you could join our present gracious viceroy — gracious by right of murder, pillage, rapine, and the word of a boy Emperor, since rightfully assassinated.”
    • 2024 September 28, HarryBlank, “Not Ready for Prime Time”, in SCP Foundation‎[1], archived from the original on 29 September 2024:
      An order asserted itself, and the hoods on the furnaces were oped wide, and a final march was organized. The wails of the injured and the roars of the dead-on-the-march overwhelmed the tinny speakers in the cell, and they all watched as nearly one thousand people reduced themselves to a few frantic hundred in less than an hour, then settled into a sustained orgy of battery, rapine and rape with no end in sight but the total depopulation of the entire facility.

Translations

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References

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  • The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (2000).

Verb

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rapine (third-person singular simple present rapines, present participle rapining, simple past and past participle rapined)

  1. (transitive) To plunder.
    • 1619, George Buck, History of Richard III:
      A Tyrant doth not only rapine his Subjects, but spoils and robs Churches.

Translations

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Anagrams

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Italian

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Noun

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rapine f

  1. plural of rapina

Anagrams

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