reave
1 Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used with or without object)
verb
-
to carry off (property, prisoners, etc) by force
-
to deprive; strip See also reive
verb
Etymology
Origin of reave1
before 900; Middle English reven, Old English rēafian; cognate with German rauben, Dutch roven to rob
Origin of reave2
1175–1225; Middle English; apparently special use of reave 1 (by association with rive )
Explanation
To reave is to plunder, or to steal a lot of goods from someone. An attacking army might storm through a village and reave from all of the houses in it. You can use the verb reave when you need an antique way to say "plunder" or "pillage." Someone who reaves is basically stealing things, although the word implies the sense of a group stealing many items after an attack, as in wartime. The Old English root word is reafian, which means "to rob, plunder, or pillage," from the Proto-Indo-European reup, "to rip."
Vocabulary lists containing reave
Quiz yourself on these words spoken by the man at the center of the "Laurel" / "Yanny" craze!
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Much Ado About Nothing
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Oedipus at Colonus
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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.
See Examples For:
While they were in Europe, Promoter Montgomery began to reave out stock at $8 to $12 a share.
From Time Magazine Archive
Till at the door the bailiff rattles And rude men reave me of my chattels, I shall prolong these wordy battles, And may the just cause prove the fortunate; Phœbus defend my nib!
From Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 by Various
There sit they in hiding to stay me From the sight of my queen of the jewels: But rude will their task be to reave me From the roof of my bounteous lady.
From The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald by W. G. (William Gershom) Collingwood
The King's 'God's eyes!' come now so thick and fast, We fear that he may reave thee of thine own.
From Becket and other plays by Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson
Then say na you maun gang awa', Oh! say na you maun leave me; For ah! the hour that parts us twa Of life itself will reave me.
From The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century by Charles Rogers
Brief time hath flown since suddenly we knew That all our gathered spoil was reaved and slaughtered, Flocks, herds, and herdmen, by some human hand, All tongues, then, lay this deed at Aias’ door.
From The Seven Plays in English Verse by Sophocles
O deceived, If thou hear in these thoughtless harmonies A pious phantom of adorings reaved, And echo of fair ancient flatteries!
From New Poems by Francis Thompson
Reave, reaved or reft, reaving, reaved or reft.
From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown
For well you know that they have reaved her of her castles by wrong, and of her land, for that she is a Widow Lady without help.
From The High History of the Holy Graal by Sebastian Evans
"Sir," saith she, "All this hath the Lord of the Moors reaved of my lady mother, and nought coveteth he so much as to have this castle, and have it he will, betimes."
From The High History of the Holy Graal by Sebastian Evans
With the Hundred Years' War against England came soldiers reaving and burning through the countryside, while the Black Death followed swiftly thereafter, striking Burgundy in 1348 and again, with even greater severity, in 1360.
From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2024
Was the sequel originally going to be a prequel about Bala-Tik and the Guavian Death Gang’s early years of reaving in the outer rim territories?
From The Guardian ● May 4, 2016
Whenever he was in his cups he would call for a reaving song, something loud and stormy that told of dead heroes and deeds of wild valor.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
"You were no priest when I was taken from Pyke.. I remember how you would sing the old reaving songs standing on the table with a horn of ale in hand."
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
In the present context rove and reaving occur in his letters, and the spelling reeve in 'The Deutschland', xii.
From Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Now First Published by Robert Seymour Bridges
A split soon reft the I. W. W. ranks.
From Time Magazine Archive
The best lines in the Cantos are very good indeed: What thou lovest well remains, the rest is dross What thou lov'st well shall not be reft from thee .
From Time Magazine Archive
Several years ago, Mayo Clinic's famed Digestion Expert Walter Clement Alvarez started a notebook in which he collected experiences of patients whose appendixes had been reft from them.
From Time Magazine Archive
Is't what the Princes' hollow theft, From Emperor and from Empire reft?
From The Student-Life of Germany by William Howitt
I refused to give up this letter, but the envelope was reft from me by a charming young lady, daughter of a Scotch doctor of London, whose country residence is out here.
From All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography The Red Leaves of a Human Heart by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
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.
