rape

plural rapes

1. countableuncountableThe act of forcing sex upon another person without their consent or against their will; originally coitus forced by a man on a woman, but now generally any sex act forced by any person upon another person, regardless of gender; by extension, any non-consensual sex act forced on or perpetrated by any being.First known use 15th c.

   Castor and Pollux are one set of twins birthed by Leda after her rape by Zeus in swan form; […]

   2013, William Butler Yeats, The Collected Works of W.B. Yeats Volume XIII: A Vision: The Original 1925 Version, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN

   4 more examples

   I fled; but he pursued (though more, it seems, / Inflamed with lust than rage), and, swifter far, / Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed, / And, in embraces forcible and foul / Engendering with me, of that rape begot / These yelling monsters […]

   1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Fred[erick]. Traytor, doſt dravv upon thy Prince? / Cur[tius]. Your Pardon Sir, I meant it on a Raviſher. / A foul miſguided Villain. / One that ſcarce merits the brave name of Man. / One that betrays his friend, forſakes his VVife; / And vvould commit a Rape upon my Miſtreſs.

   1671, A[phra] Behn, The Amorous Prince, or, The Curious Husband. A Comedy, […], London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for Thomas Dring, […], →OCLC, Act III, scene i, page 37

   She was thoughtful and full of consideration without being slavish and without compromising her arrogant spirit. And now he knew that she was profoundly, excitingly sensual, but that the conquest of her body, because of the central privacy in her, would each time have the sweet tang of rape.

   1953, Ian Fleming, “Tide of Passion”, in Casino Royale, London: Pan Books, published 1955, page 167

   Last April the media world exploded in indignation at the rape and beating of a jogger in Central Park.

   1990 January 22, ‘Turning Victims into Saints’, Time

2. An experience that is pleasant for one party and unpleasant for the other, particularly when the unwilling partner's suffering is worse than necessary.
   1. countableoffensiveslangsometimesuncountableOverpowerment; utter defeat.
   2. countableoffensiveslangsometimesuncountableAn insult to one's senses so severe that one feels that they cannot ever be the same afterwards.

      The ear rape of that concert was so bad I can't even listen to their songs at work anymore.

3. archaiccountableuncountableThe taking of something by force; seizure, plunder.First known use early 14th c.

   the Rape of Nanjing

   4 more examples

   Ruin'd orphans of thy rapes complain.

   1638, George Sandys, chapter XXII, in A Paraphrase upon Job

   Ellery Queen deals entirely in murders; you are not fobbed off, as you are with Mr. Leslie Charteris's Saint, with pablum about the rape of the dowager's emeralds, or the theft of the blueprint of the newest submarine.

   1959, Dorothy Parker, “Ellery Queen: The New York Murders”, in The Portable Dorothy Parker, New York: Penguin, published 1976, pages 566–568

   She worked under the great tapestry with its glowing but subdued tones—huntsmen with lofted horns had been running down a female stag. After the rape, leaving the grooms to bring the trophy home, they galloped away into the soft brumous Italian skyline; […]

   1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur or The Prince of Darkness: A Novel, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN; republished in The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian, Quinx, London: Faber and Faber, 1992, →ISBN, page 23

   Few of the Teleri were willing to go forth to war, for they remembered the slaying at the Swanhaven, and the rape of their ships.

   a. 1974 (date written), J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “(please specify the page)”, in Christopher Tolkien, editor, The Silmarillion, 1st American edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, published 15 September 1977, →ISBN

4. archaiccountableuncountableThe abduction of a woman, especially for sexual purposes.First known use 15th c.

   Sat. Traytor, if Rome haue law, or we haue power, / Thou and thy Faction shall repent this Rape. / Bass. Rape call you it my Lord, to cease my owne, / My true betrothed Loue, and now my wife?

   c. 1588–1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

   1 more example

   The tale of the rape of Lucretia, for example, is hardly tellable - as many Roman writers themselves discovered - without raising the question of where seduction ends and rape begins; the rape of the Sabines puts a similar question mark over the distinction between rape and marriage.

   2000 September 8, Mary Beard, “(please specify the article title)”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC

5. countableobsoleteuncountableThat which is snatched away.

   Where now are all my hopes? O, never more. / Shall they revive! nor death her rapes restore.

   1636, G[eorge] S[andys], “(please specify the page)”, in A Paraphrase upon the Psalmes of David. And upon the Hymnes Dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments, London: [Andrew Hebb […]], →OCLC

6. countableobsoleteuncountableMovement, as in snatching; haste; hurry.

present singular third person rapes · participle present raping · participle past raped · past raped

1. transitiveTo force sexual intercourse or other sexual activity upon (someone) without their consent.First known use 16th c.

   "They taught us nothing but how to cheat, curse and abuse. I never killed in cold blood even if I was known as one of the most fearless fighters. Yes, I abducted several children, I robbed and beat, but I never raped."

   2007, Kunda: The Story of a Child Soldier, →ISBN, page 51

   2 more examples

   The prosecution case was that the men forced the sisters to strip, threw their clothes over the bridge, then raped them and participated in forcing them to jump into the river to their deaths. As he walked off the bridge, Clemons was alleged to have said: "We threw them off. Let's go."

   2012 August 21, Ed Pilkington, “Death penalty on trial: should Reggie Clemons live or die?”, in The Guardian

   […] in the country of my birth […] my attack now "counts," and my rapist could be prosecuted […] In the place in which I live today, he could not. The statute in my current state of residence reserves that term for the forcible insertion of a penis into a vagina—a definition that allows me, other similarly situated men, and innumerable women whose attacks did not conform to that particular model, to experience the perverse harm of switching between the ranks of the raped and the unraped merely by stepping on board an airplane for a few hours.

   2018, Raymond M. Douglas, On Being Raped, page 18

   Synonyms: ravish, violate, vitiate

2. intransitivetransitiveTo seize by force. (Now often with sexual overtones.)First known use late 14th c.

   Dr Ashok's eyes had a tendency to pop whenever he wanted to rape your attention.

   1978, Gore Vidal, Kalki

   1 more example

   It is six years since my just action to reclaim the armaments raped from here by the Lairds of Dalgetty and Tolly […].

   1983, Alasdair Gray, “Logopandocy”, in Every Short Story 1951-2012, Canongate, published 2012, page 136

   Synonyms: loot, seize, snatch, take, apprehend, begripe, capture, fang

3. transitiveTo carry (someone, especially a woman) off against their will, especially for sex; to abduct.First known use 15th c.

   A Princess rap’d transcends a Navy storm'd.

   1718, Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, The Iliad

   1 more example

   Paridell rapeth Hellenore: Malbecco her pursewes: Findes emongst Satyres, whence with him To turne she doth refuse.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

4. transitiveTo plunder, to destroy or despoil.First known use 17th c.

   I raped your richest roadstead—I plundered Singapore!

   1892, Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads

   2 more examples

   They come out here in their perky little foreign cars, fifty pounds of American copper in each one, and tell us we're earth-raping monsters.

   1996, Stephen King, Desperation

   We've raped the land for power and possession / Two thousand years and all we'll have is a planetary toxic deathbed

   2018, “Armageddon Blues”, performed by Power Trip

   Synonyms: depredate, pillage, ransack, ravage, sack, spoliate

5. offensiveslangsometimesTo subject (another person) to a painful or unfair experience.

   I attended, the mothers went around the circle, introducing themselves. They added a brief statement about their own experiences with vaccine for the reporter’s benefit. Dionne said that she felt “raped” when she was forced to give Tate some vaccinations.

   2018 January 2, Samantha D. Gottlieb, “8. Mothers and Gardasil”, in Not Quite a Cancer Vaccine. Selling HPV and Cervical Cancer, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 121

   1. offensiveslangsometimesTo overpower, destroy (someone); to trounce.First known use 20th c.

      My experienced opponent will rape me at chess.

      Synonyms: beat, obliterate, own, thrash, beat, bring down, convince, chew up

   2. offensiveslangsometimesTo exploit an advantage, often involving money, where the other person has little choice but to submit.

      Have you seen the prices in that store lately? I got raped for $20 just buying a sandwich.

plural rapes

1. historicalOne of the six former administrative divisions of Sussex, England.First known use 11th c.

   It seems to me very clear that the rapes of Sussex were divisions already existing there when the Normans landed.

   1888 March 20, Henry H. Howorth, in a letter to The Archaeological Review, volume 1 (March–August 1888), page 230

   2 more examples

   There is little, if any, doubt that the division of Sussex into six rapes had been carried out before the Conquest, though the term is not mentioned in any Old English record.

   1971, Frank Merry Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England

   These four castles dominated the Sussex rapes named after them; the fifth rape, Bramber, held by William de Braose, was in existence by 1084.

   1997, Ann Williams, The English and the Norman Conquest, page 18

present singular third person rapes · participle present raping · participle past raped · past raped

1. intransitiveobsoletereflexiveTo make haste; to hasten or hurry.First known use 14th–16th c.

plural rapes

1. obsoleteHaste; precipitancy; a precipitate course.First known use 14th–17th c.

comparative more rape · superlative most rape

1. obsoleteQuickly; hastily.First known use 14th–19th c.

1. Synonym of rapeseed, Brassica napus.First known use late 14th c.

   After the Industrial Revolution, it was discovered that rape also yields oil suitable for lubrication.

   2001, Bill Lambrecht, Dinner at the New Gene Café, page 231

   Synonyms: rapeseed, Brassica napus

plural rapes

1. countableuncountableThe stalks and husks of grapes from which the must has been expressed in winemaking.
2. countableuncountableA filter containing the stalks and husks of grapes, used for clarifying wine, vinegar, etc.
3. countableobsoleteuncountableFruit plucked in a bunch.

   a rape of grapes

   2 more examples

   rape of Cistus

   1682, John Ray, Methodus Plantarum Nova

   With regard to this obligation, the Council, on 26 October 1971[,] also arranged for certain producers to be totally or partially exempted from it, either because their wine production is very low (less than 50 hectolitres in one marketing year), or because they deliver their rapes of grapes to oenological merchants, or because they make quality wines […]

   1971, Bulletin of the European Communities

plural Rapes

1. A surname.