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Ravaging   /rˈævɪdʒɪŋ/   Listen
Ravaging

adjective
1.
Ruinously destructive and wasting.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Ravaging" Quotes from Famous Books



... forced upon him successive treaties did not prevent renewed attacks or heal the scars of the repeated devastations of the lower and the upper Rhine country. The culmination of this period of suffering was the terrible ravaging of the Palatinate, in 1688, when the fertile region about Heidelberg, Mannheim, Speyer, and Worms was harried and burned and pillaged by the soldiers of Louis, with the same brutality and more destructiveness than the wild Swedish ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... respect us. But France, once our ally, has dared to insult us! she has violated her obligations; she has depredated our commerce—she has abused our government, and riveted the chains of bondage on our unhappy fellow citizens! Not content with ravaging and depopulating the fairest countries of Europe, not yet satiated with the contortions of expiring republics, the convulsive agonies of subjugated nations, and the groans of her own slaughtered citizens, she has spouted her fury across the Atlantic; and the stars and stripes of Independence ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various

... the interests of his master, than with the furtherance of his own plans, now purposed to carry the war into Saxony, and by ravaging his territories, compel the Elector to enter into a private treaty with the Emperor, or rather with himself. But, however little accustomed he was to make his will bend to circumstances, he now perceived the necessity of postponing his favourite scheme for a time, to a more pressing emergency. ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.

... Kirkpatrick, with information that the Northumbrians, being apprised of King Edward's approach, were assembling in immense bodies; and having crossed the debatable land in the night, had driven Sir Eustace Maxwell, with great loss, into Carlaveroch; and though harassed by Kirkpatrick himself, were ravaging the country as far as Dumfries. The letter of the brave knight added, "These Southron thieves blow the name of Edward before them, and with its sound have spell-bound the courage of every soul I meet. Come then, valiant Wallace, and conjure it down again, else I shall not be surprised ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... Malaga with the remainder, rejoicing in his triumph over the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and having taught King Ferdinand that the game of ravaging an enemy's country was one at which two ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... sought, by ravaging the land, to bring Harold to an engagement. He had until now subsisted by plunder. He was now obliged to concentrate his forces. A concentrated army cannot feed by pillage. There was but one thing for the Norman leader to do. He must attack the foe in his strong ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... he was compelled to leave the precious load of walrus blubber behind, so as to carry Annadoah, who was unable to walk, on the sledge. He covered the blubber with cakes of ice, hopeful that it might by chance escape the ravaging bears. His companions might come for it after his return. He knew the probabilities were, however, that the keen noses of bears ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... accordingly as one space. The headbands in some of the earlier books were sewn at the same time as the other bands on the sewing-press and drawn in to the boards, but in most early bindings the ravaging repairer has been at work and made it impossible to know for certain what was the state of the headbands before the book came into his hands. Most of the existing headbands are made by hand in the usual way, with the ends ...
— English Embroidered Bookbindings • Cyril James Humphries Davenport

... pieces of eight and fifty head of cattle, Don Diego would forbear from reducing the place to ashes. And what time that suave and courtly commander was settling these details with the apoplectic British Governor, the Spaniards were smashing and looting, feasting, drinking, and ravaging after the ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini

... Philadelphia and Sebonitis and Gerasa and Pella and Scythopolis, and after them Gadara and Hippos" ("Wars," II. xviii. 1). I submit that, if Gadara had been a city of "Hebrews bound by the Mosaic law," the ravaging of their territory by their brother Jews, in revenge for the massacre of the Caesarean Jews by the Gentile population of that place, would surely have been a somewhat unaccountable proceeding. But when we proceed a little further, to the fifth section of the chapter in which this statement ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley

... substitutes. He encouraged agriculture by distributing seeds and offering prizes for the destruction of wolves, which were still numerous in his district, and he waged a successful war on a moth that was ravaging the wheat crop. He assisted in the introduction of the manufacture of pottery, still one of the leading industries of Limoges. His reports are among the most valuable material in existence for the study of the condition ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... given to Don Enrique Enriquez de Guzman, who, far from acting on the defensive, carried his men repeatedly over the border, sweeping off fifteen or twenty thousand head of cattle in a single foray, and ravaging the country as far as Carcassona and Narbonne. [1] had concentrated a considerable force in the south, retaliated by similar inroads, in one of which they succeeded in surprising the fortified town of Salsas. The works, however, were in so dilapidated a state, that the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott

... hours, probably without shedding another drop of blood; but General Eisenhower suddenly halted our Army. He kept it sitting idly outside Berlin for days, while the Russians slugged their way in, killing, raping, ravaging. We gave the Russians control of the eastern portion of Berlin—and of all the territory ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... curls which fell upon his shoulders after the fashion of the time, it was as cruel, as evil, as sensuous, as ruthless, as powerful an old face as had ever looked over a bulwark at a sinking ship, or viewed with indifference the ravaging of a devoted town. Courage there was, capacity in large measure, but not one trace of human kindness. Thin, lean, hawk-like, ruthless, cunning, weather-beaten, it was sadly out of place in its brave attire in that vaulted chamber. It was the face of a man who ruled by terror; ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... continued in the East of France, which had been excluded from the armistice. Besancon still kept the enemy in check, and the latter had their revenge by ravaging the Franche Comte. Sometimes we heard that they had approached quite close to the frontier, and we saw Swiss troops, who were to form a line of observation between us and them, set out on ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... days afterwards the Persians entered upon the deserted plain, which they rendered more desolate by ravaging the fields and burning the empty towns. Athens shared the common fate, and her splendid temples sank in flames. Sardis was avenged. The joy in ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... Anthophorae, these Bees, therefore, obey the egotistical law of each one for himself and do not know how to band themselves together to repel an enemy who threatens one and all. Taken singly, the Anthophora does not even know how to dash at the enemy who is ravaging her cells and drive him away with her stings; the pacific creature hastily leaves its dwelling when disturbed by undermining and escapes in a crippled state, sometimes even mortally wounded, without thinking of making use of its venomous sting, except when it is seized and handled. Many other Hymenoptera, ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... nobility. Among his most precious acquisitions was an Irish MS. containing the Psalter of Cashel, Cormac's still unpublished Glossary, and some of the poems ascribed to St. Patrick and St. Columba. On the Continent the armies of Gustavus Adolphus were ravaging the cities of Germany; and Laud's agents were always at hand to rescue the fair books and vellums from the Swedish pikemen. In this way he obtained the printed Missal of 1481 and a number of Latin MSS. from the College of Wuerzburg, and other ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton

... by the black hell which at this moment appears to me a paradise when compared with the earth, that I will henceforward give boundless scope to all my passions, and, by ravaging and destroying, believe that I am acting consistently to such a monster as man. Fly, and purchase me his daughter: she is doomed to destruction, as is every thing ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger

... to let no man know of his departure from life, to the intent that the fear of his approach might prevent fresh monsters and new robbers from ravaging ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... forced to depend solely upon the green rye growing in the fields. Several thousands died; the troops themselves suffered so much from thirst and hunger that no less than 30,000 stragglers fell out from the ranks and spread themselves over the country, burning, ravaging, plundering, and committing terrible depredations. Such dismay was caused by their treatment that the villages were all abandoned, and the whole population retired before the advance of the French, driving their flocks and herds before them, and ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty

... set forth to obtain the gold I promised," he said. "Pedro and your countryman may accompany us to carry what we find. We must return before the morning, lest we encounter any of the Spanish forces, who are ravaging the country on ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... now no longer carried on the war together, since each blamed the other for the disaster, but Junius went on ravaging a portion of Samnium, while Rufinus inflicted injury upon Lucanians and Bruttians. He then started against Croton, which had revolted from Rome. His friends had sent for him, but the other party got ahead of them by bringing a garrison ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume 1 (of 6) • Cassius Dio

... army would march very soon now. The New York and New England men alike were full of fire, eager to avenge Braddock's defeat and equally eager to drive back and punish the terrible clouds of savages which, under the leadership of the French, were ravaging the border, spreading devastation and terror ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... in several parts of England seem to have withdrawn from the kingdom of Wessex, and to have revived their former independency. This, added to the weakness of the government, made way for new swarms of Danes, who burst in upon this ill-governed and divided people, ravaging the whole country in a terrible manner, but principally directing their fury against every monument of civility or piety. They had now formed a regular establishment in Northumberland, and gained a very considerable footing in Mercia and East Anglia; they hovered over ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... brought Lily's handkerchief back with her! It was a last abasement: the woman's horrible handkerchief. She burst into hysterical weeping.... The next morning, when she came down to breakfast, her face was haggard with those ravaging tears, and with the fatigue of hating. Even before she had her coffee, she burned the scented scrap of machine-embroidered linen, pressing it down between the logs in the library fireplace; but she could not burn her hate; ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... Catherine Hall; Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge. He died in February 1598 while the plague was ravaging Carlisle, and was ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley

... Belgic attacks on the Dutch frontier districts. In 1605 the Genoese general, at the head of a mixed but well-disciplined force in his own pay, made a rapid advance towards Friesland, and, after capturing Oldenzaal and Lingen and ravaging the eastern provinces, concluded the campaign with a brilliant success against a body of the States cavalry commanded by Frederick Henry, who nearly lost his life. Maurice with inferior forces kept strictly on the defensive, skilfully covering the heart of the land from ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... on, burning the towns and ravaging the country until he reached Poissy. The bridge was as usual destroyed, but the piles on which it stood were still standing, and he determined to endeavour to cross here. He accordingly halted for five days, but despatched ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty

... his defiance of the Company; you have seen his defiance of all decency; you see his open protection of prostitutes and robbers of every kind ravaging Bengal; you have seen this defiance of the authority of the Court of Directors flatly, directly, and peremptorily persisted in to the last. Order after order was reiterated, but his disobedience arose with an elastic spring in proportion to ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... reported to have done damage that year in Eastern Massachusetts exceeding half a million of dollars. The joint worm (Isosoma hordei) alone sometimes cuts off whole fields of grain in Virginia and northward. The Colorado potato beetle is steadily moving eastward, now ravaging the fields in Indiana and Ohio, and only the forethought and ingenuity in devising means of checking its attacks, resulting from a thorough study of its habits, will deliver our wasted fields from ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... short while he took leave of Sir Thierry, and came with Sir Heraud to England, to the court of King Athelstan at York. Scarce had he arrived there when tidings came that a great black and winged dragon was ravaging Northumberland, and had destroyed whole troops of men which went against him. Sir Guy at once armed himself in his best proven armour, and rode off in quest of the monster. He battled with the dragon from prime till undern, and on from undern until evensong, but for all the dragon was so strong ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... infidelity. Upon these grounds, the confederate clergy appeal to Christians throughout the world to aid them in creating a sentiment against this war—"against persecution for conscience' sake, against the ravaging of the church of ...
— Narrative of the Life of J.D. Green, a Runaway Slave, from Kentucky • Jacob D. Green

... mind now and lingered over the one central theme of the talk he overheard: the wars and plagues. Hints of a Europe and Asia swept almost clean of human life, of the plague ravaging Africa, of its appearance in South America, of the frantic efforts of the United States to prevent its ...
— The Street That Wasn't There • Clifford Donald Simak

... in its last writhing, the monster died. It had begun by furiously ravaging Belgium in August, 1914; it ended with the awful, wanton murder of noncombatants at Mezieres in November, 1918. Throughout four years, three months and ten days, it had ramped and raged over the land, under the sea and in the air, slaughtering, poisoning, ravaging, without cessation, ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... he gave them. I do not think that he ever suffered very acutely through his personal emotions. His energy of output was so tremendous, his power of concentration so great, that he found a security here from the more ravaging emotions of the heart. Not often did he give his heart away; he admired greatly, he sympathised freely; but I never saw him desolated or stricken by any bereavement or loss. I used to think sometimes that he never needed anyone. I never saw him exhibit the smallest trace of jealousy, nor ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson

... themselves and their men very well. He also took Harald Eirikson to be his foster-son, set him on his knee, and thereafter he was brought up at the Danish king's court. Some of Eirik's sons went out on viking expeditions as soon as they were old enough, and gathered property, ravaging all around in the East sea. They grew up quickly to be handsome men, and far beyond their years in strength and perfection. Glum Geirason tells of one of them in the ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... by the vigilance and determination of the English admiral. Disappointed in these attempts, he proceeded, in the teeth of the warnings which had been given him, to execute his orders to put down the insurrection on land, and carried them out with merciless atrocity,—ravaging the Morea with fire and sword. Resolved now to bring matters to an issue, the combined fleets in October, 1827, entered the harbour. As was expected would happen, the Turks fired upon them, and then ensued the famous battle of Navarino, in which, ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... of guerrillas have become bolder, but he has not threatened Pendleton again. They say also that a little farther south a band of like character, who call themselves Southern, under a man named Slade, are ravaging, but I suppose that you, who see great generals and great armies daily, are not much concerned ...
— The Tree of Appomattox • Joseph A. Altsheler

... tidings; he had not heard since that event, which he believed would have been as much joy to Mary as to himself—his ordination. He struggled with his own anxiety that the intervening obstacles to his journey should not deprive him of serenity and trust, but the inward fever was ravaging within. Only one short week, and then he departed; ere, however, that time came, he received a letter, and with a sickening feeling of indefinable dread recognised the handwriting of his Mary. He left the breakfast-parlour to peruse it alone, and it was long before he returned to his family. They ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume II. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes • Grace Aguilar

... a single ship in the harbor; there were only a few fisher-boats tossing on the waves, from whose owners he learned that the insurgent slaves, after ravaging the coast, had retired in large numbers to the interior ...
— The Corsair King • Mor Jokai

... made rapid marches to overtake the mountain men—the "Hornets," from the "Switzerland of America," and cut off Col. Clarke's forces. Failing in this, he afterward moved more slowly and frequently halted to collect all the Tories he could persuade to join him. He crossed Broad river, ravaging the country through which he marched. About the last of September he encamped at Gilberttown, near the present town of Rutherfordton. la his march to this point, his force-increased to upwards of one thousand men. All of his Tory recruits were furnished with arms, most of them with rifles, and a ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... ravaging of immense areas of crop-producing lands, the driving away of the people that lived on them, and the dislocation of commerce, the food supplies for millions of non-combatants are so reduced that the rising generation in several countries is impaired on a scale never ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... in a former part of my journal mentioned the Illanun pirates, and my meeting with them here. On our return we heard of their being still on the coast, and from that time to this they have been ravaging and plundering between Tanjong Datu, Sirhassan, and Pontiana. Malays and Chinese have been carried off in great numbers; Borneo and Sambas prahus captured without end; and so much havoc committed, that the whole coast, ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel



Words linked to "Ravaging" :   pillage, pillaging, devastation, plundering, destructive, ravage



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