Nominal Forms
Infinitive: to reave
Participle:
Gerund: reaving
Indicative
Present
Perfect
Past
Pluperfect
Future
Future Perfect
Subjunctive
Present
Perfect
Imperfect
Pluperfect
Imperative
Verbs similar to 'reave'
deave,
greave,
heave,
leave,
rave,
reeve,
repave,
resave,
reve,
roave,
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms
- to take something that does not belong to one
- abduct, abstract, appropriate, bag, bandit, bone, boost, borrow, burglarize, burgle, cheat, chore, convert, cop, cozen, crib, embezzle, filch, fleece, flog, gaffle, half-inch, heist, jack, kidnap, knock off, kype, kyper, liberate, lift, loot, make off with, mill, misappropriate, moonlight requisition, nick, own, peculate, pickpocket, pilfer, pillage, pinch, pirate, plunder, poach, pocket, prig, purloin, raid, ransack, rape, rip, rip off, rob, run off with, snag, snatch, steal, swindle, swipe, thieve, walk off with
Additional Information
Cf. Old English (be)rēafian.
Phrasal Verbs
Etymology
1. From Middle English reven, from Old English rēafian, from Proto-West Germanic *raubōn.
2. Germanic cognates include West Frisian rave, Old English rēaf (“spoils, booty”)), and Old English past participle rofen (“torn, broken”), Norwegian rjuva, German rauben, Danish røve, and Swedish röva. Outside of Germanic, related to Latin rumpō (“to break”), Lithuanian rùpti (“to roughen”), Sanskrit रोपयति (ropayati, “to make suffer”)). See rob and reif. See: Middle English '
reven', German, old spelling '
rauben', Danish '
røve', Swedish '
röva', Latin '
rumpō', Sanskrit '
रोपयति'.
Verbs referencing "reave"
Proto-Slavic
rъvati.
Sample Sentences
-
And I for one am not convinced of the innocence of the model: it is as if we let a criminal make up the law as he or she ambles along, reaving right and left. [1997, Lawrence R. Schehr, Rendering French Realism, →ISBN, page 18:]
-
Few of the chroniclers of Nero’s reign have been accurate when relating the situation that obtained between the Emperor and his mother from the time when, reft of her German and Pannonian guards, she lived in a more or less solitary rage on one estate or another. [1985, Anthony Burgess, Kingdom of the Wicked:]