reave

/riv/

Other forms: reft; reaves; reaved; reaving

To reave is to plunder, or to steal a lot of goods from someone. An attacking army might storm through a village and reave from all of the houses in it.

You can use the verb reave when you need an antique way to say "plunder" or "pillage." Someone who reaves is basically stealing things, although the word implies the sense of a group stealing many items after an attack, as in wartime. The Old English root word is reafian, which means "to rob, plunder, or pillage," from the Proto-Indo-European reup, "to rip."

Definitions of reave

1. verb

   steal goods; take as spoils
   synonyms: despoil, foray, loot, pillage, plunder, ransack, rifle, strip

   types:

   deplume, displume

   strip of honors, possessions, or attributes

   type of:

   take

   take by force