Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The act of seizing and carrying off, or the act or state of forcible abduction; violent transport or removal.
  • noun Mental transport; a carrying or being carried away with delight; ecstasy; rapture.
  • noun Violation of female chastity; rape.

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

  • noun The act of carrying away by force or against consent; abduction.
  • noun The state of being ravished; rapture; transport of delight; ecstasy.
  • noun The act of ravishing a woman; rape.

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

  • noun ecstasy
  • noun seizure by force
  • noun rape

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

  • noun the crime of forcing a woman to submit to sexual intercourse against her will
  • noun a feeling of delight at being filled with wonder and enchantment

Etymologies

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Examples

  • What little bit survives a couple of hundred years of human ravishment, that is!

    newmatilda.com - Comments 2009

  • What little bit survives a couple of hundred years of human ravishment, that is!

    newmatilda.com - Comments 2009

  • Mack Mitchell's "ravishment" of teenage Tibetan refugees eh Desmond?

    Ministers and Professional Ethics Steve Caldwell 2009

  • I behold the light with a kind of ravishment, and all the rest of the day I am happy.

    Classic French Course in English William Cleaver Wilkinson

  • Through the heads about him be could see her standing a little in advance of the others, her head turned to one side, really in the natural attitude of violin-playing, but, as it seemed to him, in a kind of ravishment of listening -- cheeks flushed, eyes shining, and the right arm and high-curved wrist managing the bow with a grace born of knowledge and fine training.

    Robert Elsmere Humphry Ward 1885

  • Through the heads about him, he could see her standing a little in advance of the others, her head turned to one side, really in the natural attitude of violin-playing, but, as it seemed to him, in a kind of ravishment of listening -- cheeks flushed, eyes shining, and the right arm and high-curved wrist managing the bow with a grace born of knowledge and fine training.

    Robert Elsmere Humphry Ward 1885

  • Theirs is a "small" life, but one that expands the intimacy of this real and world-wide ravishment.

    Lauren Gunderson: Theater of the Every Day Epic Lauren Gunderson 2010

  • Theirs is a "small" life, but one that expands the intimacy of this real and world-wide ravishment.

    Lauren Gunderson: Theater of the Every Day Epic Lauren Gunderson 2010

  • Theirs is a "small" life, but one that expands the intimacy of this real and world-wide ravishment.

    Lauren Gunderson: Theater of the Every Day Epic Lauren Gunderson 2010

  • They fill him with an attentive ravishment, a marveling, it's pleasing and rejuvenating, a steady, pure current that he has never experienced until now with anyone. . .

    A Window Onto Comic Tedium Sam Sacks 2011

Comments

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  • The swain intreated, sighed, looked, and sighed again; when all at once, changing his note from childish treble to the big manly voice of bluster and ravishment, he swore that he would have by foul means what he could not obtain by fair.

    - Lesage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane, tr. Smollett, bk 8 ch. 1

    October 3, 2008