English

Verb

reive ‎(third-person singular simple present reives, present participle reiving, simple past and past participle reived or reft)

1. Archaic spelling of reave.
   • 1567 July 19, Proclamation by the Earl of Bedford, quoted in Calendar of State Papers, foreign series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, 1566-8 (1871), volume 10:

     [The earl] commands all within his charge to abstain from reiving or stealing from the subjects of Scotland. For such riefs as have been made upon them, the Queen minds to have the same mended by justice.

   • 2011, Mark Richards, Hadrian's Wall Path: Two-way national trail description (ISBN 1849654263), page 102:

     Spine-chilling tales of reiving raids are a legendary legacy of these violent times, when careless murder, theft and pillage were everyday professions.

   • 2014, Peter T. Leeson, Anarchy Unbound (ISBN 1139916262):

     So, although many borderers regularly engaged in reiving, most were also part-time agriculturalists, raising crops such as oats and rye, as well as livestock.