rape

1 of 4

noun (1)

ˈrāp

: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person's will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception compare sexual assault, statutory rape

: an outrageous violation

: an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force

rape

2 of 4

verb

raped; raping

transitive verb

: to commit rape on

: despoil

archaic : to seize and take away by force

raper noun

rape

3 of 4

noun (2)

: an Old World herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food compare canola

rape

4 of 4

noun (3)

: the pomace of grapes left after expression of the juice

Examples of rape in a Sentence

Noun (1) an international law defining rape as a war crime the legend of the rape of the Sabine women by the ancient Romans was frequently depicted in classical art Verb He is accused of raping the girl. She was raped by a fellow student.

Recent Examples on the Web

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Verb

Founded by the survivors of the Golden State Killer, the nonprofit is named after the late Phyllis Henneman who was raped by Joseph DeAngelo, also known as the East Area Rapist. —

Ishani Desai, Sacramento Bee, 5 Jan. 2025 Graves filed a federal lawsuit in New York claiming she was raped by Combs and his former bodyguard in 2001, an allegation later disputed by the bodyguard, Joseph Sherman, in a November countersuit. —

Mary Whitfill Roeloffs, Forbes, 3 Jan. 2025 Judge Torres has granted lawyer Alex Spiro's request to file a dismissal motion in the lawsuit that accuses Jay-Z of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000. —

Jami Ganz, New York Daily News, 3 Jan. 2025 The mother of the now 30-year-old spoke to the Herald and said her daughter was brutally raped by Olea in 2011. —

Clara-Sophia Daly, Miami Herald, 2 Jan. 2025 That same year a woman named Effie accused him of raping her in 2017. —

Etan Vlessing, The Hollywood Reporter, 2 Jan. 2025 The woman, who filed her lawsuit under the name Jane Doe, alleged she was raped after she was driven to an MTV Video Music Awards afterparty 24 years ago. —

Charmaine Patterson, People.com, 27 Dec. 2024 By Katherine Fung Senior Writer 90 New Yorkers have long been haunted by the story of Kitty Genovese, a 28-year-old bartender who was raped and stabbed outside her apartment building in Queens in 1964. —

Andy Biggs, Newsweek, 24 Dec. 2024 What To Know In a civil suit filed in a New York federal court on December 8, an anonymous plaintiff alleged that she was raped at the age of 13 while attending an afterparty following the MTV Video Music Awards in New York City on September 7, 2000. —

Dan Perry, Newsweek, 18 Dec. 2024

Noun

Following an interview with detectives, Williams was booked into jail on multiple first-degree charges, including three counts of rape, kidnapping, coercing and burglary, according to police. —

Daniella Segura, Sacramento Bee, 6 Jan. 2025 However, nothing concrete was brought up against him until December 2024 when a woman accused the Brooklyn rapper of rape. —

Armon Sadler, VIBE.com, 6 Jan. 2025 Judge Killefer drew a parallel to tactics used by Bill Cosby’s lawyers in his 2017 legal dispute with Janice Dickinson, who accused the comedian of rape. —

Tatiana Siegel, Variety, 6 Jan. 2025 Before embarking on a political career, Starmer served as the U.K.’s director of public prosecutions, running the Crown Prosecution Service during the country’s child rape gangs scandal. —

Chloe Taylor, CNBC, 6 Jan. 2025 In 2017, Ratner sued a woman who’d accused him of rape for defamation. —

Wendy Lee, Los Angeles Times, 5 Jan. 2025 His ex-wife, Chambers, filed for divorce in 2020, months before abuse, rape and cannibalistic fantasy allegations against Hammer publicly came to light. —

Stephanie Giang-Paunon, Fox News, 2 Jan. 2025 And these are basically unpunished because the college administrators, the presidents and deans, don't want to bring discredit to their campus by having a girl take legal action that would publicize the rape. —

Marianne Schnall, Forbes, 30 Dec. 2024 But what happens when such a fair-minded public servant perennially on the side of innocent underdogs finds himself as the defense attorney of a judge who might be guilty of rape and assault? —

Tomris Laffly, TIME, 20 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle English, "violent seizure, abduction of a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her," borrowed from Anglo-French rap, rape, probably borrowed from Medieval Latin rapum, noun derivative of rapiō, rapere "to seize and carry off, abduct a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her" — more at rape entry 2

Note: Use of this word in its most predominant modern meaning is attested early in legal Anglo-French and British Medieval Latin, though the precise derivational pathways are uncertain. The Latin word may have been based on the Anglo-French word, but both must ultimately be dependent on the classical Latin verb. Note that rapum exists alongside classical Latin raptus, the regularly derived u-stem verbal noun, used in British Medieval Latin in the sense "rape." Compare ravish.

Verb

Middle English rapen "to abduct a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her," borrowed from Anglo-French raper, borrowed from Medieval Latin rapiō, rapere "to seize and carry off, abduct a woman with of the intent of sexually assaulting her," going back to Latin, "to seize and carry off, take away by force, carry off a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her, carry or sweep along, impel forcibly (to a course of conduct), snatch up, gather quickly" — more at rapid entry 1

Note: The verb rapen in its predominant modern sense is rare in Middle English, the more common verb meaning "to rape" being ravisshen "to ravish." The Middle English Dictionary lists rapen with a meaning "to carry off, transport (the soul to heaven)," but all forms cited are for a past participle rapt, rapte, which appears to have been borrowed directly from Medieval Latin raptus, past participle of rapere in this sense (see rapt). See also the note at rape entry 1.

Noun (2)

Middle English, "turnip, Brassica napus," borrowed from Latin rāpa, rāpum "turnip"; akin to Germanic *rōbjōn- "turnip" (whence Middle Dutch & Middle Low German rove, Old High German ruoba, ruoppa), Lithuanian rópė, Greek rháphys, rhápys (all going back to an earlier *rāp(h)-), Church Slavic (eastern) rěpa, Polish rzepa (going back to *rēp-), Welsh erfin "turnips, rape," Breton irvin (going back to *arb-īno-, perhaps metathesized from *rab-), all from a substratal pre-Indo-European word of uncertain form

Note: The Greek forms with fluctuating aspiration, as well as the derivative rháphanos "any of various cultivars of Brassica oleracea, radish," with the suffix -anos, argue for membership in the same pre-Greek substratum as a number of other Greek words; whether the other European forms are borrowed from this etymon or are part of a more general substratum is unclear (see Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2010, p. 1277). Not related to Old Norse rófa "tail" (see Guus Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Brill, 2013, p. 415).

Noun (3)

French râpe grape stalk

First Known Use

Noun (1)

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3

Verb

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2b

Noun (2)

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Noun (3)

1657, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of rape was in the 14th century

See more words from the same century

Cite this Entry

Style

“Rape.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rape. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.

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Kids Definition

rape

1 of 3 noun

ˈrāp

: an herb related to the mustards that is grown for animals to graze on and for its seeds which are used as birdseed and as a source of oil

compare canola

rape

2 of 3 verb

raped; raping

archaic : to take away by force

: to have sexual relations with by force

raper noun

rapist

ˈrā-pəst

noun

rape

3 of 3 noun

: an act or instance of raping

Etymology

Noun

Middle English rape "the herb rape," from Latin rapa, rapum "turnip, rape"

Verb

Middle English rapen "to take away by force," from Latin rapere "to seize"

Medical Definition

rape

1 of 3 noun

ˈrāp

: a European herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food see canola sense 1

rape

2 of 3 transitive verb

raped; raping

: to commit rape on

rape

3 of 3 noun

: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent compare sexual assault, statutory rape

Legal Definition

rape

1 of 2 transitive verb

raped; raping

: to commit rape on

raper noun

rapist noun

rape

2 of 2 noun

Note: The common-law crime of rape involved a man having carnal knowledge of a woman not his wife through force and against her will, and required at least slight penetration of the penis into the vagina. While some states maintain essentially this definition of rape, most have broadened its scope especially in terms of the sex of the persons and the nature of the acts involved. Marital status is usually irrelevant. Moreover, the crime is codified under various names, including first degree sexual assault, sexual battery, unlawful sexual intercourse, and first degree sexual abuse.

Etymology

Transitive verb

Latin rapere to seize and take away by force

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rape

noun (1)

verb

noun (2)

noun (3)

Synonyms

Examples of rape in a Sentence

Word History

Dictionary Entries Near rape

Cite this Entry

Kids Definition

Medical Definition

Legal Definition