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
Derived 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.
Duras’ 1964 novel, “The Ravishing of Lol Stein,” also explores a woman’s obsession over the loss of a man.
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 14, 2022
Simply Ravishing is the 5-2 favorite from the No. 3 post for the $400,000 Grade 1 Ashland for fillies, with 170 total points up for grabs towards the Kentucky Oaks on April 30.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 30, 2021
Ravishing as this is, it still disappointed many of Alcott’s contemporaries, because Jo didn’t marry Laurie.
From The New Yorker • Aug. 20, 2018
“I was going out to L.A. and I thought maybe I would look up Aaron, you know we were in the Army together --” With my cousin Ravishing, there was a much happier ending.
From New York Times • Oct. 4, 2012
Ravishing is indeed out of Fashion in this Age; and therefore I am at a Loss for modern Examples; but antient Story abounds with them.
From The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love by Fielding, Henry
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.
