ravishing

Content warning: this article contains sexual language.

Someone, usually a woman, called ravishing is “stunningly beautiful.”

To ravish someone historically meant to “plunder” or “violently seize and rape a woman,” but in contemporary speech it refers to wanting passionate, consensual intercourse with a person.

Ravishing begins with the Latin rapere, “to seize or carry off by force.” Via French, this verb ultimately formed such English words as ravenous, rape, rapid, ravage, and ravish.

Ravish is recorded in the early 1300s. While it could more generally mean “rob” or “plunder,” ravish was specifically used of violently “dragging a woman away,” often involving rape.

The “rape” and “plunder” ravish now sounds more obsolete, and the sense of the verb has softened. If you say you want to ravish someone today, it usually means you really want to have passionate, consensual sex with them.

Ravish also survives in ravishing, as in you look ravishing. This sense is found in the 1400s, originally of something that produced a strong emotion in a person (i.e., something that has really seized them). That’s how ravishing gets used for something “enchanting” or “beautiful.”

In contemporary English, ravishing is primarily used to compliment women as captivating in their looks and, sometimes, personality. One may especially hear the word, say, during the Academy Awards as women take to the red carpet looking ravishing in their gowns. Ravishing may also be used of works of art, like music or paintings.

Win or lose Lana will always be #Ravishing 💙🙌

— Adrieyuanna (@adriejones) August 7, 2018

Contrary to its rape-related origins, to be ravished in contemporary English can be something people like.

More examples of ravishing:

“Stunning! Teri Hatcher was ravishing in a red dress on Friday Afternoon. The 53-year-old brunette beauty was on a panel to discuss her TV show Lois & Clark at the Comic-Con panel in New York City.”
—Heidi Parker, Daily Mail (caption), October 2018

This content is not meant to be a formal definition of this term. Rather, it is an informal summary that seeks to provide supplemental information and context important to know or keep in mind about the term’s history, meaning, and usage.