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
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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
A certain man would reave them of this castle for that no aid nor succour have they save of me alone.
From The High History of the Holy Graal by Sebastian Evans
His father made moan, his mother made moan, But Meggie made muckle mair; His father made moan, his mother made moan, But Meggie reave her yellow hair.
From Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series by Frank Sidgwick
But they try to reave from God, His part, who would be praised of men for good deeds.
From The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises by Geraldine Emma Hodgson
Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine; Staunch and strong the tendrils twine: Though the frail ringlets thee deceive, None from its stock that vine can reave.
From May-Day and Other Pieces by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
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
Reave, reaved or reft, reaving, reaved or reft.
From The Grammar of English Grammars by Goold Brown
His peace of mind was nothing that they could turn into cash; and they seemed to have reaved him of nothing else.
From The Brass Bowl by Louis Joseph Vance
"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
O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu Some good!
From Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins Now First Published by Robert Seymour Bridges
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
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
While doing duty at the Residency he had thrown aside the turban reft from Abdul Huq and he now wore the peaked shako, with white puggaree, affected by junior staff officers at that period.
From The Red Year A Story of the Indian Mutiny by Louis Tracy
The bright spot of my childhood is reft of its light!
From Verses of Feeling and Fancy by Wm. M. MacKeracher
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.
