ravishing
Americanadjective
adjective
Usage
What else does ravishing mean? 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.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of ravishing
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English; see origin at ravish, -ing 1
Explanation
The adjective ravishing describes something or someone of exceptional beauty. If you say the dress your friend picked for the prom is ravishing, you mean it's beautiful and she looks beautiful in it. The adjective ravishing comes from the verb ravish, which is from the Latin word rapere, meaning to seize. In English, the verb meant to plunder or to carry away, and later a sense arose that meant to carry away in pleasure, or to seduce. So a dress that is ravishing is seductive or sexy––or, as the word became more popular, simply beautiful, as in "ravishing scenery."
Vocabulary lists containing ravishing
Call of Beauty: Synonyms for "Beautiful"
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The Odyssey
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The Namesake
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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.
And just like she promises in my summer staple, Bonnie Tyler’s huge choruses and blockbuster anthems will be ravishing us until the end of this endless night.
From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026
Jason Sherwood’s ravishing scenic design, full of eye-catching texture and lush density, makes it impossible not to dream along with the characters.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 20, 2026
And then there is his voice — perhaps at its most ravishing on “Take Care of Yourself,” a ballad from his 2011 album “Bella” — at once fierce and tender, colored by longing and loss.
From Salon ● May 15, 2026
Our critic called it “instructive, ravishing and thorough.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 9, 2025
It was a deep and ravishing landscape, and a daring and magnificent dream.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
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.
