Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To force (another) to have sexual intercourse; rape.
  • transitive verb To overwhelm with emotion; enrapture.
  • transitive verb Archaic To seize and carry away by force.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To seize and carry off; transport or take away forcibly; snatch away.
  • To transport mentally; enrapture; bring into a state of ecstasy, as of delight or fear.
  • To deprive by seizure; dispossess violently: with of.
  • To violate the chastity of; commit rape upon; deflower.
  • noun Ravishment; ecstasy; a transport or rapture.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To seize and carry away by violence; to snatch by force.
  • transitive verb To transport with joy or delight; to delight to ecstasy.
  • transitive verb To have carnal knowledge of (a woman) by force, and against her consent; to rape.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To seize and carry away by violence; to snatch by force.
  • verb transitive, usually passive To transport with joy or delight; to delight to ecstasy.
  • verb transitive To rape.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb force (someone) to have sex against their will
  • verb hold spellbound

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English ravishen, from Old French ravir, raviss-, from Vulgar Latin *rapīre, from Latin rapere, to seize; see rep- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman, from Old French raviss-, present participle stem of ravir ("to seize, take away hastily"), from Late Latin *rapire, from Latin rapere.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Not to be confused with radish.

    June 18, 2008

  • Nor peevish.

    June 18, 2008

  • "Her looks were ravishing, but when it came to ravishing, looks weren't enough."

    - my best friend used to say that, I wonder where he got it from!

    Maybe I'll just say

    - Louis Zukofsky and leave it at that. He seems to have supplied quite a lot of shite here.

    June 20, 2008