rap-, rav- +

1. Someone who uses force to have sexual intercourse with another person.
2. Anyone who commits rape.

1. Involved in, fascinated by, or concentrating on something to the exclusion of everything else: "She was staring with rapt attention at the speaker."
2. Showing or suggesting deep emotions of joy or ecstasy; transported with emotion; enraptured: "rapt with joy".
3. Deeply engrossed or absorbed: "a rapt listener".
4. Showing or proceeding from rapture: "a rapt smile".
5. Carried off spiritually to another place, sphere of existence, etc.
6. From Latin raptus, past participle of rapere, "to seize, to snatch". The figurative sense is from the notion of "carried up into Heaven (bodily or in a dream)", as in a saint's vision.

One might be surprised to learn that rapt, a word used in describing states of deep delight or absorption, has a relative with an entirely different emotive force: rape. Now most often used to mean “to force someone to submit to sexual acts”, rape once had a much broader application, as it meant “to seize, carry off”.

In fact, it was often used in positive and nonviolent contexts. From the Middle English period, we have examples of its being used to mean “to carry off to heaven from earth”, as in “the visions of seynt poul wan [when] he was rapt in to paradys.” As this quotation shows, rapt started out as the past participle of rape. As time went on, rapt became restricted to mental or emotional states, while rape developed a new past participle, raped, and became limited to criminal or violent acts.

1. Living by preying on other animals; especially, by catching living prey; for example, raptorial birds.
2. Able to live by catching prey.
3. Specially adapted for seizing prey, as are the feet of birds of prey with their sharp talons.

1. The state or condition of being transported by a lofty emotion; ecstasy.
2. An expression of ecstatic feeling. Often used in the plural.
3. The transporting of a person from one place to another; especially, to heaven.
4. The belief that in the "last days", believing Christians will be removed from the earth before the final tribulation. This is a notion associated with premillenialism and dispensationalism.

Rapture originally meant being caught up in an emotional state, typically involuntary and uncontrollable. Now, it simply means "great joy" or ecstasy.

1. Ecstatic joys or delights; joyful ecstasies.
2. Utterances or expressions of ecstatic delights.
3. The carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence.
4. In theology, the experiences, anticipated by some fundamentalist Christians, of meeting Christ midway in the air upon His return to earth.
5. Archaic, the act of carrying off.

An enthusiast.

1. Feeling great rapture or delight.
2. Full of, feeling, or manifesting ecstatic joy or delight.
2. characterized by, attended with, or expressive of great joy and happiness.

1. In an ecstatic manner (showing or feeling great pleasure or delight).
2. A description of extreme pleasure and happiness or excitement.

1. An expression or manifestation of ecstasy or passion.
2. A state or experience of being carried away by overwhelming emotion.
3. A mystical experience in which the spirit is exalted to a knowledge of divine things.
4. The final assumption of Christians into heaven during the end-time according to certain Christian theology.

1. To bring heavy destruction on; to devastate: "A tornado ravaged the town."
2. To pillage; to sack: "The enemy soldiers ravaged the village."
3. The act or practice of pillaging, destroying, or devastating.
4. Grievous damage; havoc: "The ravages of the disease caused many deaths and suffering."

1. Any of several large, corvine birds having lustrous, black plumage and a loud, harsh call; especially, Corvus corax, of the New and Old Worlds.
2. Lustrous black: raven locks of hair.
3. To seek plunder or to prey.
4. To eat, to feed, or to devour voraciously or greedily: "to raven like an animal".
5. To have a ravenous appetite.
6. To seize as spoil or prey.

1. Excessively greedy and grasping.
2. Devouring or craving food in great quantities. 3. Living by preying on other animals; especially, by catching living prey.

The central modern meaning of ravenous, "very hungry", developed from the notion of predatory animals that seize and eat their prey. This word came from Latin rapere, "seize by force", ancestor of the English word rape.

1. In the manner of someone who is very hungry.
2. Very eager or greedy for food, satisfaction, or gratification.

1. An excessive desire to eat.
2. Extreme voracity; rage for prey; as, the ravenousness of a wolf.