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s or credulity of others. It is better that men should be governed by priestcraft than by violence. Macaulay.

A pluck; loss or violence suffered. [Poetic] Two pulls at once; His lady banished, and a limb lopped off. Shak.

In a rabid manner; with extreme violence.

To pass with violence or rapidity; to scrape along. Pas could not stay, but over him did rake. Sir P. Sidney.

To butt or strike against; to drive a ram against or through; to thrust or drive with violence; to force in; to drive together; to cram; as, to ram an enemy's vessel; to ram piles, cartridges, etc. [They] rammed me in with foul shirts, and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins. Shak.

To move by leaps, or by leaps; hence, to move swiftly or with violence. Their bridles they would champ, And trampling the fine element would fiercely ramp. Spenser.

Characterized by violence and passion; unruly; rampant. [Prov. or Low] In the primitive ages of a rampageous antiquity. Galt.

Force; violence. [Obs.] For courageously the two kings newly fought with great random and force. E. Hall.

a to hurry and ræna plunder, fr. ran plunder, E. ran.] To seize and plunder; to snatch by violence. Dryden. "[Ye] waste all that ye may rape and renne." Chaucer. All they could rap and rend pilfer. Hudibras. -- To rap out, to utter with sudden violence, as an oath. A judge who rapped out a great oath. Addison.…

Given to plunder; disposed or accustomed to seize by violence; seizing by force. " The downfall of the rapacious and licentious Knights Templar." Motley.

A seizing by violence; a hurrying along; rapidity with violence. [Obs.] That 'gainst a rock, or flat, her keel did dash With headlong rapture. Chapman.

Desolation by violence; violent ruin or destruction; devastation; havoc; waste; as, the ravage of a lion; the ravages of fire or tempest; the ravages of an army, or of time. Would one think 't were possible for love To make such ravage in a noble soul Addison.

The faith of very many men seems a duty so weak and indifferent, is so often untwisted by violence, or raveled and entangled in weak discourses! Jer. Taylor.

Prey; plunder; food obtained by violence.

Food obtained by violence; plunder; prey; raven. "Fowls of ravyne." Chaucer. Though Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrieked against his creed. Tennyson.

To seize and carry away by violence; to snatch by force. These hairs which thou dost ravish from my chin Will quicken, and accuse thee. Shak. This hand shall ravish thy pretended right. Dryden.

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

reprisal; the retaking of one's own goods, chattels, wife, or children, without force or violence, from one who has taken them and who wrongfully detains them. Blackstone. Writ of recaption (Law), a writ to recover damages for him whose goods, being distrained for rent or service, are distrained again for the same cau…

Rigor; violence. [Obs.] Gower.

A temporary and incomplete subsidence of the force or violence of a disease or of pain, as destinguished from intermission, in which the disease completely leaves the patient for a time; abatement.