rape
1 Americannoun
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unlawful sexual intercourse or any other sexual penetration of the vagina, anus, or mouth of another person, with or without force, by a sex organ, other body part, or foreign object, without the consent of the person subjected to such penetration.
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any sexual activity, with or without penetration, that takes place without the consent of one of the people involved.
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an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation.
the rape of the countryside.
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Archaic. the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
The rape of the Sabine women is the subject of several classical sculptures and paintings that depict Roman soldiers kidnapping unwilling brides.
verb (used with object)
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to commit the crime of rape against (a person).
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The logging operation raped a wide tract of forest without regard for the environmental impact of their harvesting practices.
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Informal: Offensive. to totally defeat, wreck, dominate, or decimate.
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Archaic. to seize, take, or carry off by force.
verb (used without object)
noun
noun
noun
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the offence of forcing a person, esp a woman, to submit to sexual intercourse against that person's will See also statutory rape
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the act of despoiling a country in warfare; rapine
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any violation or abuse
the rape of justice
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archaic abduction
the rape of the Sabine women
verb
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to commit rape upon (a person)
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(also intr) to plunder or despoil (a place) in war
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archaic to carry off by force; abduct
noun
noun
Sensitive Note
There are many violent metaphors to describe a dramatic victory or defeat: The home team slaughtered the competition on Saturday. It was a bloodbath! They absolutely massacred the visiting team. The defense was decimated. Our guys killed it! This type of hyperbole is sometimes tasteless, but it is not generally considered to be offensive. However, rape is a crime with survivors in every stratum of every society. Using rape as a metaphor for some other struggle trivializes the trauma of sexual assault that many have suffered. Such figurative usage is beyond insensitive and should be avoided.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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rapesimple
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rapessimple
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have rapedperfect
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has rapedperfect
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am rapingprogressive
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are rapingprogressive
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is rapingprogressive
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have been rapingperfect progressive
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has been rapingperfect progressive
Past
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rapedsimple
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had rapedperfect
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was rapingprogressive
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were rapingprogressive
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had been rapingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of rape1
First recorded in 1250–1300; (for the verb) Middle English rapen, from Anglo-French raper, from Latin rapere “to seize, carry off by force, plunder”; (for the noun) Middle English, from Anglo-French ra(a)p(e), derivative of raper
Origin of rape2
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Middle French or directly from Latin rāpum (neuter), rāpa (feminine) “turnip”; cognate with Greek rhápys
Origin of rape3
First recorded in 1590–1600; from French râpe, Old French, Middle French raspe “grape stalks,” from Germanic; compare Old High German raspōn “to scrape,” Medieval Latin raspa “bunch of grapes”
Explanation
Rape is a word for sexual assault. This is one of the worst crimes there is. Rape can also mean to plunder or strip something of resources. There are few words more powerful than rape, which is a horrifying crime. To rape someone is to force them to have sex with you. This word isn't an obscenity, but its meaning is. There are also some metaphorical meanings, like if a country is said to rape the land of a resource, like oil. Some countries might rape their rain forests by cutting them down. However it's used, rape is a violent and ugly word.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Platner, a Marine veteran whose blunt anti-establishment message thrilled the progressive grassroots, quit the race after a rape allegation he denies.
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
It is being led by officers from Operation Bluestone, its dedicated rape and serious sexual assault investigation team.
From BBC ● Jul. 1, 2026
A New York judge declared a mistrial in disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein’s rape case in its third trial, after a jury said “no one is going to change where they stand.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Louisiana, an existing Supreme Court decision declaring capital punishment for child rape to be unconstitutional.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026
This was the same year in which William Blake evoked England’s 'dark, Satanic mills* in his poem ‘Jerusalem’, but Beethoven's easy-listening Pastoral is not about the industrial rape of the countryside.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
They were also told that Alshafe and Ahmadi entered the UK via small boat three months before the alleged rapes and that Al-Danasurt had entered the country a year before.
From BBC ● Mar. 17, 2026
The early 2025 crime decline builds off numbers from 2023 and 2024 and appears to include not just homicide but also robberies, rapes, burglaries, and auto theft.
From Slate ● May 7, 2025
Petty thefts are up by roughly 14%, but other property crimes — along with homicides, robberies and rapes — are all down from the same period in 2022.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2023
In Ms. Willis’ first year as top prosecutor, Fulton County had 204 homicides, 284 rapes and over 1,000 robberies.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 17, 2023
French beans, wheat sodden in broth, aniseed, also onions, stewed garlic, leeks, yellow rapes, fresh mugwort roots, eringo roots confected, ginger connected, etc.
“I find that Ritter’s statement that she was raped by Schmidt to be false.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2026
Edafe told Channels: "We have spoken to four girls and all of them said nobody raped them."
From BBC ● Mar. 23, 2026
But these laws punish all women and girls: mothers and non-mothers, wives and single women, women who've had 100 partners and those who were virgins when raped.
From Salon ● Dec. 2, 2024
The French legalized abortion in 1975 after the high-profile case of a 16-year-old girl, Marie-Claire Chevalier, who was raped by a classmate and underwent an illegal abortion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2024
A period wherein science was raped by the metaphysicians, wherein physics became a search for the Philosopher's Stone, wherein chemistry became alchemy, and astronomy became astrology.
From The Iron Heel by London, Jack
In 2011, he received a Tony nomination for his role in The Scottsboro Boys, a musical based on the true story of nine Black teenagers wrongly accused of raping two white women.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC told the court Mosquera's "detailed" defence statement produced for the trial made no "mention of Albert Alfonso raping you".
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2025
Earlier this year, ABC news anchor George Stephanopoulos appeared on the network’s “This Week” news program and asserted that Trump was found liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2025
The New York jury on Tuesday cleared Mr. Trump of raping Ms. Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
From Washington Times ● May 10, 2023
Michael Ferrera, another of Carroll's attorneys, said Trump "just decided not to be here. He never looked you in the eye and denied raping Ms. Carroll."
From Salon ● May 9, 2023
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
