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Webster 1913 Edition

Reave

Reave

(rēv)
,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Reaved
(rēvd)
,
Reft
(rĕft)
, or
Raft
(rȧft)
(
obs.
);
p. pr. & vb. n.
Reaving
.]
[AS.
reáfian
, from
reáf
spoil, plunder, clothing,
reófan
to break (cf.
bireófan
to deprive of); akin to G.
rauben
to rob, Icel.
raufa
to rob,
rjūfa
to break, violate, Goth.
biráubōn
to despoil, L.
rumpere
to break; cf. Skr.
lup
to break. √114. Cf.
Bereave
,
Rob
,
Verb.
T.
,
Robe
,
Rove
,
Verb.
I.
,
Rupture
.]
To take away by violence or by stealth; to snatch away; to rob; to despoil; to bereave.
[Archaic]
.
“To reave his life.”
Spenser.
He golden apples
raft
of the dragon.
Chaucer.
If the wooers
reave

By privy stratagem my life at home.
Chapman.
To
reave
the orphan of his patrimony.
Shakespeare
The heathen caught and
reft
him of his tongue.
Tennyson.

Webster 1828 Edition

Reave

REAVE

,
Verb.
T.
To take away by stealth or violence; to bereave. Obs. [See Bereave.]

Definition 2024

reave

reave

English

Alternative forms

Verb

reave ‎(third-person singular simple present reaves, present participle reaving, simple past and past participle reaved or reft)

  1. (archaic) To plunder, pillage, rob, pirate, or remove.
    • 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.
    • 1997, Lawrence R. Schehr, Rendering French Realism (ISBN 0804780161), 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.
Translations
Derived terms
Related terms

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)

  1. (archaic) To split, tear, break apart.
Related terms

Etymology

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.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ɹiːv/
    Rhymes: -iːv

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