rapine

Etymology

From Middle English and Old French, from Latin rapīna, from rapiō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹæpaɪn/

• Audio (US)

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Noun

rapine (uncountable)

1. The seizure of someone's property by force; pillage, plunder.
   • Thomas Macaulay (1800-1859)

     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, The Bat, chapterI:

     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.”

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

Verb

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

1. To plunder.
   • Sir G. Buck, Hist. Richard III:

     A Tyrant doth not only rapine his Subjects, but spoils and robs Churches.

Anagrams

• Napier, arpine, panier

Noun

rapine f

1. plural of rapina

Anagrams

• aprine