Meaning & use
ravish
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Meanings
verbtransitiveliterary
To fill someone with great delight so that they are overwhelmed by pleasure or admiration.
Grammar: Takes an object and is mostly literary: the view ravished us.
Patterns
- ravish someone
- be ravished by something
The singer's voice ravished the audience.
She was ravished by the beauty of the garden.
The painting ravishes the eye with its color.
verbtransitivearchaic
To seize and carry off someone or something by force.
Grammar: Archaic; found in old stories and poems.
Patterns
- ravish someone away
In the old tale, the bandits ravished the treasure from the temple.
The poem tells how a storm ravished the ships from the harbor.
Legend says the prince was ravished away to a distant tower.
verbtransitivearchaicoffensive
To rape someone, in older writing.
Grammar: Archaic and sensitive; today the plain word is used and ravish is avoided.
Patterns
- ravish someone
Older legal texts use ravish for a crime now named plainly.
Historians note that the word ravish appeared in medieval law codes.
Modern writers avoid ravish in this sense.
Word forms
| third person singular | ravishes |
|---|---|
| past tense | ravished |
| past participle | ravished |
| -ing form | ravishing |
Common combinations
- ravish the senses
- The festival of lights ravished the senses.
- ravish the eye
- The scenery ravished the eye.
- ravished by beauty
- He was ravished by the beauty of the valley.
- ravish the ear
- Music that ravished the ear filled the hall.
Synonyms and how they differ
- enchant
- Enchant suggests casting a spell of charm, and is a gentler, more modern word.
- captivate
- Captivate means to hold someone's attention completely and is the most common modern equivalent.
- enrapture
- Enrapture stresses intense joy, almost like being carried away.
- delight
- Delight is everyday and milder, without the overwhelming force of ravish.
Opposites
Word family
- ravishing adjective
- extremely beautiful or delightful
- ravishingly adverb
- in a stunningly beautiful way
- ravishment noun
- a state of great delight, or the act of seizing
- ravisher noun
- an old word for someone who seizes or rapes
Commonly confused: ravish or ravage?
ravish vs ravage
Ravage means to destroy or badly damage, whereas ravish in its main sense means to fill with delight.
Practice
The poem says the sunset ___ the eye of every traveler on the hill.
Choose one answer.
Ravished the eye means delighted it. Ravaged looks similar but means destroyed, so it would describe harm, not pleasure.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “ravish”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.