RAPACIOUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Rapacious

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/rəpˈæʃɪs/ /rəpˈeɪʃɪs/ Listen

adjective

Rapacious adj.

Given to plunder; disposed or accustomed to seize by violence; seizing by force. " The downfall of the rapacious and licentious Knights Templar."

Accustomed to seize food; subsisting on prey, or animals seized by violence; as, a tiger is a rapacious animal; a rapacious bird.

Avaricious; grasping; extortionate; also, greedy; ravenous; voracious; as, rapacious usurers; a rapacious appetite. "(Thy Lord) redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious claim"

Synonyms: Greedy; grasping; ravenous; voracious.

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Etymology of 'Rapacious'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rapacious" Quotes from Famous Books

... Forest itself being continually exposed to danger by its proximity to the Welsh border. Mahel was this lady's youngest brother, of whom Camden records that "the judgment of God overtook him for his rapacious ways, inhumane cruelties, and boundless avarice, always usurping other men's rights. For, being courteously treated at the Castle of St. Briavel's by Walter de Clifford, the castle taking fire, he lost his life by the fall of a stone on his head from the highest ...

— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... being now deprived of their jurisdiction, have already lost much of their influence; and as they gradually degenerate from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords, they will divest themselves of the ...

— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... call him "Jake," and later "Houck." As soon as the boy had a moment to spare he took a good look at the man. He did not like what he saw. Was it the cold, close-set eyes, the crook of the large nose, or the tight-lipped mouth gave the fellow that semblance to a rapacious wolf? ...

— The Fighting Edge • William MacLeod Raine

... says Walcknaer, "so vast in comparison with those furnished by the African Society, were, to our thinking, partly the cause of his loss. The rapacious demands of the African kings grew in proportion to the riches they supposed our traveller to possess; and the effort to meet the enormous drain made upon him, was in great part the cause of the catastrophe which brought the expedition to ...

— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... that the unveiling of the bust of William Morris should approximate to a public festival, for while there have been many men of genius in the Victorian era more despotic than he, there have been none so representative. He represents not only that rapacious hunger for beauty which has now for the first time become a serious problem in the healthy life of humanity, but he represents also that honourable instinct for finding beauty in common necessities of workmanship which gives it a stronger and more bony structure. ...

— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

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