Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having or showing a strong or excessive desire to acquire money or possess things; greedy.
- adjective Living by killing prey, especially in large numbers.
- adjective Taking things by force; plundering.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Of a grasping habit or disposition; given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed, or obtaining wrongfully or by extortion; predatory; extortionate: as, a rapacious usurer; specifically, of animals, subsisting by capture of living prey; raptorial; predaceous: as, rapacious birds or fishes.
- Of a grasping nature or character; characterized by rapacity; immoderately exacting; extortionate: as, a rapacious disposition; rapacious demands.
- Synonyms Rapacious, Ravenous, Voracious. Rapacious, literally disposed to seize, may note, as the others do not, a distinctive characteristic of certain classes of animals; the tiger is a rapacious animal, but often not ravenous or voracious. Ravenous implies hunger of an extreme sort, shown in eagerness to eat. Voracious means that one eats or is disposed to eat a great deal, without reference to the degree of hunger: a glutton is voracious. Samuel Johnson tended to be a voracious eater, because in his early life he had often gone hungry till be was ravenous.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Given to plunder; disposed or accustomed to seize by violence; seizing by force.
- adjective Accustomed to seize food; subsisting on prey, or animals seized by violence
- adjective Avaricious; grasping; extortionate; also, greedy; ravenous; voracious
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Voracious ;avaricious . - adjective Given to taking by
force orplundering . - adjective of an animal
Subsisting off liveprey .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective excessively greedy and grasping
- adjective devouring or craving food in great quantities
- adjective living by preying on other animals especially by catching living prey
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The ruins of the resort are now covered in rapacious island vegetation creeping in from the jungle.
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Historically, Third World countries have been at the mercy of Western monetary policy, including what many call the rapacious banking ideology perpetrated by the “World Bank.”
New Shoes on Old Debt-Current economic woes have 1980's roots 2008
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Men wanting to inspire the kind of rapacious passion Edward does might try reading the Twilight novels.
Devra Maza: A Twilight Seduction: What Men Can Learn From Edward Devra Maza 2010
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Men wanting to inspire that kind of rapacious passion might try reading the novels by Stephenie Meyer on which the Twilight films are based.
Devra Maza: A Twilight Seduction: What Men Can Learn From Edward Devra Maza 2010
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Men wanting to inspire that kind of rapacious passion might try reading the novels by Stephenie Meyer on which the Twilight films are based.
Devra Maza: A Twilight Seduction: What Men Can Learn From Edward Devra Maza 2010
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Men wanting to inspire that kind of rapacious passion might try reading the novels by Stephenie Meyer on which the Twilight films are based.
Devra Maza: A Twilight Seduction: What Men Can Learn From Edward 2010
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They don't like the public being reminded that it was GOP stalwart Phil Graham's crusade for the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act, that was put in place after the Great Depression to protect the financial system from this kind of rapacious Republicanism, that was, in large part, the hole in the greed dam that put the economy where it is today.
Brian Ross: Why Republicans May Be Barack's Best Buddies at the Stimulus Luau 2009
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Others will be "rapacious," engaging in a vicious competition to seize and exploit new star systems first.
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Tamar Singer, a freelance anesthesiologist who received several of the letters, calls the city "rapacious" and has stopped working and shopping there.
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MR. LOCKHART: Jake's going to tell me what "rapacious" means -- no, I know what it means.
Press Briefing By Joe Lockhart ITY National Archives 2000
kiltwraith commented on the word rapacious
1. given to seizing for plunder or the satisfaction of greed.
2. inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate: a rapacious disposition.
3. (of animals) subsisting by the capture of living prey; predacious.
March 18, 2009
dharma66 commented on the word rapacious
I like how the visuals show birds; namely raptors. However, the bullfrog inhabiting my pond is also rapacious. He seizes small birds and swallows them whole.
August 3, 2011