reave
English
Pronunciation
Alternative forms
Etymology 1
From Middle English reven, from Old English rēafian, from Proto-Germanic *raubōną (compare West Frisian rave, German rauben, Danish røve, Swedish röva), from *raubō (compare Old English rēaf (“spoils, booty”)), from *reufaną (“to tear”) (compare Old English past participle rofen (“torn, broken”), Norwegian rjuva), from Proto-Indo-European *Hrewp- (compare Latin rumpere (“to break”), Lithuanian rùpti (“to roughen”), Sanskrit रोपयति (ropayati, “to make suffer”)). See rob and reif.
Verb
reave (third-person singular simple present reaves, present participle reaving, simple past and past participle reaved or reft)
- (archaic) To plunder, pillage, rob, pirate, or remove.
- 1997, Lawrence R. Schehr, Rendering French Realism, →ISBN, page 18:
- And I for one am not convinced of the innocence of the model: it is as if we let a criminal make up the law as he or she ambles along, reaving right and left.
- (archaic) To deprive (a person) of something through theft or violence.
- 1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:
- Few of the chroniclers of Nero’s reign have been accurate when relating the situation that obtained between the Emperor and his mother from the time when, reft of her German and Pannonian guards, she lived in a more or less solitary rage on one estate or another.
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
|
Etymology 2
Alteration of rive by confusion with the above.
Verb
reave (third-person singular simple present reaves, present participle reaving, simple past and past participle reft)
Related terms
Middle English
Verb
reave
- Alternative form of reven
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/iːv
- English terms with homophones
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English lemmas
- English verbs
- English terms with archaic senses
- English terms with quotations
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English verbs