Word of the Day Archive
Monday May 27, 2002
rapine \RAP-in\
, noun:
The act of plundering; the seizing and carrying away of another's property by force.
He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (translated by N.H. Thomson)
Extortion and rapine are poor providers.
-- Olaudah Equiano, Unchained Voices: an anthology of Black authors in the English-Speaking World of the 18th Century
The war, proclaimed William Lloyd Garrison, was one "of aggression, of invasion, of conquest, and rapine - marked by ruffianism, perfidy, and every other feature of national depravity."
-- Robert W. Johannsen, "America's Forgotten War (Mexican War, 1846-1848)", The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1996
Rapine derives from Latin rapina, from rapere, "to seize and carry off, to snatch or hurry away," which also gives us rapid.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for rapine
