# ravening

Pronunciation: say "RAV-uh-ning" /ˈɹævənɪŋ/

## Adjective

1. Fiercely voracious and greedy, driven by an intense hunger to devour or seize.
   - Simple: Extremely hungry and greedy, wanting to eat or grab everything in sight.
   - _The ravening pack of hounds tore through the underbrush after the stag._
   - _Famine drove the ravening mob to break into the city's granaries._

## Noun

2. A rapacious eagerness for plunder, expressed through robbery and extortion.
   - Simple: A strong desire to rob or take things from others by force.
   - _The warlord's ravening left whole villages stripped of their harvests._
   - _Centuries of ravening by raiding fleets emptied the temple treasuries._

## Noun

3. The predation of an animal upon its prey; voracious eating or consumption. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The act of a wild animal hunting and eating its prey.
   - _The shepherd's flock was thinned by the ravening of mountain wolves._
   - _Scavengers gathered where the great cats had finished their ravening._

## Adjective

4. Subjected to the voracity of a predator; being preyed upon and devoured. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: Being seized and eaten by a hungry, hunting animal.
   - _The ravening hare lay broken beneath the falcon's talons._
   - _A ravening fawn cried out as the lynx closed in for the kill._

## Origin

It comes from the present participle of the now-obsolete verb 'raven', meaning 'to prey'.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ravening (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).