ravager

American  

[rav-i-jer] / ˈræv ɪ dʒər /

noun

1. a person or thing that works havoc or does ruinous damage.

   Cancer is a ravager of the body and soul.

   Toward the end of the 8th century, Viking ravagers began to harry the British Isles.

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Etymology

Origin of ravager

First recorded in 1605–15; ravage ( def. ) + -er ¹ ( def. )

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ravager

Such snarls have won Deeb, TV and radio critic for the Chicago Tribune, a reputation as the wolf-man of the air waves?the sourest, crudest ravager of the medium since Spiro Agnew put away his thesaurus.

From Time Magazine Archive

Aunt Mary, if she had been pretty in infancy, had been spoiled by that dreadful ravager, the small-pox, which she had caught, through the carelessness of a nurse, when she was five years old.

From Aunt Mary by Mrs. Perring

To his fame, it would have erected no auxiliary monument to have invaded, like the ravager of Egypt, an innocent though barbarous nation, to inscribe his name on the pillar of Pompey.

From Washington's Birthday by Robert Haven Schauffler

Here, for intrigant and ravager, penitent and saint, failure and world-weary, was sanctuary—respite, if only for an hour, from sin and strife, passion and hate and self.

From The House of Toys by Henry Russell Miller

But this unaccountable gray ravager 108 was bigger than any two such wolves, fiercer and more dauntless than any ten.

From Kings in Exile by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts

Related Words

• criminal
• gangster
• hooligan
• marauder
• mobster
• outlaw
• pirate
• raider
• robber