direption

English

Etymology

From Latin dīreptio, from dīripiō (“tear asunder, plunder”), from dis- + rapiō (“seize, carry off”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪˈɹɛpʃən/, /daɪˈɹɛpʃən/

Noun

direption (countable and uncountable, plural direptions)

1. The act of despoiling, plundering, or snatching away.
   • 1611, Iohn Speed [i.e., John Speed], “But First of the Downe-fall of Britaine”, in The History of Great Britaine under the Conquests of yͤ Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans. […], London: […] William Hall and John Beale, for John Sudbury and George Humble, […], →OCLC, book VII ([The Saxons] […]), paragraph 2, page 281, column 2:

     [T]heir hoſtile oppreſsions vvere increaſed by their domeſticke vexations, for that the vvhole Countrey by theſe continuall direptions, vvas utterly depriued of the ſtaffe of foode, hauing nothing left to prolong their life, but that only vvhat they got in hunting.

   • 1641, Thomas Heywood, The Life of Merlin: Surnamed Ambrosius:

     committing many direptions and outrages

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “direption”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Anagrams

• perdition, tropidine