Library / English Dictionary

RAVAGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

(usually plural) a destructive action

Example:

the depredations of age and disease

Synonyms:

depredation; ravage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("ravage" is a kind of...):

demolition; destruction; wipeout (an event (or the result of an event) that completely destroys something)

Domain usage:

plural; plural form (the form of a word that is used to denote more than one)

Derivation:

ravage (cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly)

ravage (make a pillaging or destructive raid on (a place), as in wartimes)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

Example:

The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion

Synonyms:

desolate; devastate; lay waste to; ravage; scourge; waste

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "ravage" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "ravage"):

ruin (reduce to ruins)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

ravage ((usually plural) a destructive action)

ravaging (plundering with excessive damage and destruction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Make a pillaging or destructive raid on (a place), as in wartimes

Synonyms:

harry; ravage

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "ravage" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

ravage ((usually plural) a destructive action)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Smoke particles from the fires ravaging Australia have traveled more than 12,000 km, crossed an ocean and a mountain range and arrived in South America, meteorological institutions confirmed, after smoke was detected in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

(Australian bushfire smoke drifts to South America, SciDev.Net)

Recent Ebola virus disease (EVD) outbreaks, including the 2013-2016 epidemic that ravaged West Africa and the 2018 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, highlight the need for licensed treatments for this often-deadly disease.

(Broadly acting antibodies found in plasma of Ebola survivors, National Institutes of Health)

I mean to tell you that it is you who are suffering from the emasculating ravages of that same microbe.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

While he lay in the bush, recovering from his fright and peering fearfully out, the mother-ptarmigan on the other side of the open space fluttered out of the ravaged nest.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Hiding the ravages of care with a sickly mask of mirth, I have not informed you, this evening, that there is no hope of the remittance!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

"I could certainly eat you alive," Martin said, in turn running insolent eyes over the other's disease-ravaged frame.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

What ravages I committed on my favourite authors in the course of my interpretation of them, I am not in a condition to say, and should be very unwilling to know; but I had a profound faith in them, and I had, to the best of my belief, a simple, earnest manner of narrating what I did narrate; and these qualities went a long way.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He laughed at his bronzed face in the glass at the thought that it was once as white as the underside of his arm; nor did he dream that in the world there were few pale spirits of women who could boast fairer or smoother skins than he—fairer than where he had escaped the ravages of the sun.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The ravages committed by this unfortunate, rendering her dismissal necessary, she was succeeded (with intervals of Mrs. Kidgerbury) by a long line of Incapables; terminating in a young person of genteel appearance, who went to Greenwich Fair in Dora's bonnet.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)