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
O help me Hubert, gentle Keeper helpe; God send this sodaine mutinous approach Tend not to reave a wretched guiltless life.
From Dramatic Technique by George Pierce Baker
Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word liberty?
From Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest by Robert Green Ingersoll
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
Again at the end he says: "Delay not, Hubert, my orisons are ended, Begin I pray thee, reave me of my sight."
From The Man Shakespeare by Frank Harris
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
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
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
Was he looking at me, at the reaved safe, or at the pathetic little reminder, which I was holding in my hand, of that long-ago Christmas present?
From The Paternoster Ruby by Charles Edmonds Walk
He had marked the misery malice had caused them, 15 1That reaved of their rulers they wretched had erstwhile2 Long been afflicted.
From Beowulf An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem by Lesslie Hall
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
It was Calamity lying on her face at the foot of the windlass, weeping and reaving her hair.
From The Freebooters of the Wilderness by Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
A split soon reft the I. W. W. ranks.
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
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
"Alas," said the yeoman, "he hath reft him from me by strength, and my master will slay me."
From King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Unknown
What right had he to look upon life as a broken thing simply because one side of its joys had been reft from him?
From The Red Derelict by Bertram Mitford
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.
