Other forms: ravishing, ravished, ravishes
To ravish is to fill with delight, or to carry off by force. Ravished by the music, ravishing beauty, ravished away.
The two senses are almost opposite and both are alive: ravishing means gorgeous and is entirely positive, while the older sense means to seize and carries the meaning of rape in historical texts. The clash makes the word awkward. Note that ravage and rapid come from the same Latin verb meaning to snatch.
1verbravishTo fill with delight.
“The audience was ravished by the beauty of her singing.”
2verbcarryTo carry off by force.
“In the ancient myth, the god ravished the young girl away to his kingdom under the earth.”
ravish is a delighting, or a seizing.
Old French ravir comes from Latin rapere, to seize. Ravage, rapid and rapture come from the same snatching.
Latin
rapere
Vulgar Latin
*rapire
Old French
ravis-
Middle English
ravyschen
English, today
ravish
Built from
From Middle English ravyschen, from Anglo-Norman -, from Old French ravis-, present participle stem of ravir (“to seize; to take away hastily”), from Vulgar Latin rapire, from Latin rapere. See also rape.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA