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Rapine vs Rapacious - What's the difference?

rapine | rapacious |

As a verb rapine

is .

As an adjective rapacious is

voracious; avaricious.

rapine

English

Noun

(-)
  • The seizure of someone's property by force; pillage, plunder.
  • * (1800-1859)
  • *:men who were impelled to war quite as much by the desire of rapine as by the desire of glory
  • *
  • *:The Bat—they called him the Bat. Like a bat he chose the night hours for his work of rapine ; like a bat he struck and vanished, pouncingly, noiselessly; like a bat he never showed himself to the face of the day.
  • *1951 , (Isaac Asimov), (1974 (Panther Books) Ltd publication), Part V: “The Merchant Princes”,
  • *:“You could join Wiscard’s remnants in the Red Stars. I don’t know, though, if you’d call that fighting or piracy. Or you could join our present gracious viceroy?—?gracious by right of murder, pillage, rapine , and the word of a boy Emperor, since rightfully assassinated.”
  • :(Shakespeare)
  • References

    * The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , Fourth Edition (2000).

    Verb

    (rapin)
  • To plunder.
  • * , Hist. Richard III :
  • A Tyrant doth not only rapine his Subjects, but spoils and robs Churches.

    Anagrams

    * ----

    rapacious

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Voracious; avaricious.
  • * 1787 , :
  • To presume a want of motives for such contests [of power between states] as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious .
  • Given to taking by force or plundering; aggressively greedy.
  • * 1910 , :
  • A Prince [...] sooner becomes hated by being rapacious and by interfering with the property and with the women of his subjects, than in any other way.
  • Subsisting off live prey.
  • * 1827 , :
  • Even the rapacious birds appeared to comprehend the nature of the ceremony, for [...] they once more began to make their airy circuits above the place [...]

    Usage notes

    * The use of this term for animals other than birds is dated.

    Synonyms

    * See also