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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rapes,
present (3rd person singular)
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raped,
past participle, past
-
raping
present participle
-
to commit the crime of rape against (a person).
-
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)
-
rapes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
raped,
past participle, past
-
raping
present participle
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
-
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
-
had rapedperfect
-
was rapingprogressive
-
were rapingprogressive
-
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:
Phillips ultimately lost his job with Collins too, this time after crudely mocking a rival political operative whose wife had accused former NBC journalist Matt Lauer of rape.
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2026
Introduced to ease prison overcrowding, on 4 August the policy was updated so people sentenced for rape, serious child sex offences and grooming would not be eligible for early release.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
He spent 23 years in prison before his 1999 rape conviction was vacated after his DNA was not detected in any of the blood or semen samples found at the scene.
From Salon ● Aug. 10, 2026
Yet eight months after that, the judge in his rape case issued a pretrial ruling in which she ordered prosecutors to honor the defendant’s “preferred pronouns.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Today the FBI’s juvenile violent-crime index, which measures arrests for murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault, is lower than it was in 1980, and that’s true across racial lines.
From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater
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
Most cases never make it as far as court: in 2021/22 there were 2,298 rape and attempted rapes reported to the police, but only 152 prosecutions and 78 convictions.
From BBC ● Aug. 29, 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
Murders have declined more than 6%, rapes nearly 8%, robberies nearly 3%, burglaries about 8% and grand larcenies nearly 2%.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 18, 2023
These principalities would then roughly coincide with the modern rapes of Chichester, Arundel, Bramber, Lewes, Pevensey, and Hastings.
From Science in Arcady by Grant Allen
The judge reserved the question of what she called “guardrails for witnesses”—that is, whether Mr. Carroll’s alleged victims will be admonished or perhaps even penalized if they testify that he, rather than “she,” raped them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
“I find that Ritter’s statement that she was raped by Schmidt to be false.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2026
The jury found Weinstein not guilty of assaulting Ms Sokola, and is still deliberating over whether he raped Ms Mann.
From BBC ● Jun. 11, 2025
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
But with the sense that she had impiously raped her joy from the heavens themselves came the exultation that not even the gods could ever take that from her.
From The Way of the Gods by John Luther Long
In her first lawsuit, Carroll accused Trump of defaming her when he insulted her and denied raping her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
Carroll sued Trump in November 2019 and seeks at least $10 million in damages over comments he made while in office that June after she first publicly accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s.
From Salon ● Dec. 13, 2023
Ex-Manchester City footballer Benjamin Mendy has been found not guilty of raping a woman and attempting to rape another at his home in Cheshire.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2023
Former Manchester City defender Benjamin Mendy was found not guilty at a retrial Friday of one count of raping a woman and the attempted rape of another woman.
From Washington Times ● Jul. 14, 2023
Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown’s 1998 musical tells the story of the 1913 trial of Leo Frank, a factory manager in Atlanta who was accused of raping and murdering a 13-year-old employee.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 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.
