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 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
Akhnaten is revealed in episodes of his life that are not fleshed out but presented as ritual, including the ravishing love duet with his wife, Nefertiti.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 5, 2026
It emerged at the same time as Fauvism in painting and lasted a year longer than Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, which dazzled audiences with ravishing, often exotic visions, sets and costumes ablaze in jewel tones.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025
This summer he was a luminary of the prestigious Salzburg Festival and Saturday conducted the world premiere of his ravishing Horn Concerto at the Lucerne Festival that was broadcast on a Swiss radio station.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 2, 2025
But the real reason why Theodora, with its ravishing music and Handel’s name above the title, opened to a near empty theatre in March 1750 was altogether more unexpected.
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
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.
