Rapacity is aggressive greed that takes everything it can. The rapacity of the landlords, sheer rapacity, unchecked rapacity.
It is stronger than greed because it names the taking rather than the wanting. The Latin is to snatch, and the same root gives rapid and rapture.
1nounrapacityAggressive greed that takes everything it can.
“The pamphlet blamed the famine on the rapacity of the grain dealers.”
rapacity is a greed.
Latin rapacitas comes from rapax, grasping, from rapere, to snatch or carry off.
Latin
rapācitās
Middle French
rapacité
English, today
rapacity
Built from
From rapac(ious) + ity, from Middle French rapacité (whence -acity, from Latin rapācitās, from rapāx, from rapiō (“snatch, grab, carry off”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA