2. To hasten. [Obs.] Piers Plowman.
3. To seize and bear away, as the mind or thoughts; to transport out of one's self; to affect with ecstasy
or rapture; as, rapt into admiration.
I 'm rapt with joy to see my Marcia's tears.
Addison.
Rapt into future times, the bard begun.
Pope. 4. To exchange; to truck. [Obs. & Low]
To rap and ren,
To rap and rend. [Perhaps fr. Icel.
hrapa 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 and pilfer.
Hudibras. —
To rap out,
to utter with sudden violence, as an oath.
A judge who rapped out a great oath.
Addison. Rap
(Rap), n. [Perhaps contr. fr. raparee.] A popular name for any of the tokens that passed current
for a half-penny in Ireland in the early part of the eighteenth century; any coin of trifling value.
Many counterfeits passed about under the name of raps.
Swift.
Tie it [her money] up so tight that you can't touch a rap, save with her consent.
Mrs. Alexander. Not to care a rap,
to care nothing. — Not worth a rap, worth nothing.
Rapaces
(||Ra*pa"ces) n. pl. [NL. See Rapacious.] (Zoöl.) Same as Accipitres.
Rapacious
(Ra*pa"cious) a. [L. rapax, -acis, from rapere to seize and carry off, to snatch away. See
Rapid.]
1. Given to plunder; disposed or accustomed to seize by violence; seizing by force. " The downfall of the
rapacious and licentious Knights Templar." Motley.
2. Accustomed to seize food; subsisting on prey, or animals seized by violence; as, a tiger is a rapacious
animal; a rapacious bird.
3. Avaricious; grasping; extortionate; also, greedy; ravenous; voracious; as, rapacious usurers; a rapacious
appetite.
[Thy Lord] redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious claim
Milton. Syn. — Greedy; grasping; ravenous; voracious.
— Ra*pa"cious*ly, adv. — Ra*pa"cious*ness, n.
Rapacity
(Ra*pac"i*ty) n. [L. rapacitas: cf. F. rapacité. See Rapacious.]
1. The quality of being rapacious; rapaciousness; ravenousness; as, the rapacity of pirates; the rapacity
of wolves.
2. The act or practice of extorting or exacting by oppressive injustice; exorbitant greediness of gain.
"The rapacity of some ages." Sprat.