rape

1 of 4

noun (1)

ˈrāp 

1

: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person's will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception compare sexual assault, statutory rape

2

: an outrageous violation

3

: an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force

rape

2 of 4

verb

raped; raping

transitive verb

1

: to commit rape on

2

a

: despoil

b

archaic : to seize and take away by force

raper noun

rape

3 of 4

noun (2)

: an Old World herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food compare canola

rape

4 of 4

noun (3)

: the pomace of grapes left after expression of the juice

Synonyms

Noun (1)

• violation
• assault

Verb

• violate
• assault
• force

Examples of rape in a Sentence

Noun (1)

an international law defining rape as a war crime

the legend of the rape of the Sabine women by the ancient Romans was frequently depicted in classical art

Verb

He is accused of raping the girl.

She was raped by a fellow student.

Recent Examples on the Web

Noun

He was arraigned the following day on two charges of second-degree murder, including one count of murder during the course of a rape, and has pleaded not guilty, the Nassau County District Attorney's Office announced in a press release. —Melina Khan, USA Today, 16 Oct. 2025

Crawford’s death marked the end of a long legal battle stemming from the 1993 kidnapping, rape and murder of 20-year-old Kristy Ray. —Emma Bussey, FOXNews.com, 16 Oct. 2025

Later the coroner called Barr back to examine Edwards at the funeral home, where the doctor reported vaginal swelling and blood loss that indicated a rape. —Literary Hub, 16 Oct. 2025

For more than 40 years, the person responsible for the brutal rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl on Long Island has eluded capture. —Lauren Del Valle, CNN Money, 16 Oct. 2025

The 1986 rape and murder convictions of John Restivo, Dennis Halstead and John Kogut were overturned in 2003 after DNA testing revealed that a profile recovered from a vaginal swab did not belong to the three men, according to the Innocence Project, which worked on their cases. —Tim Stelloh, NBC news, 15 Oct. 2025

Today, Vance was back on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast to take another kick at dampening the outrage and calls for consequences for the Young Republicans’ pro-Nazis, pro-rape and racist statements. —Dominic Patten, Deadline, 15 Oct. 2025

Following a report this week that several members of the Young Republican organization shared messages in a group chat using slurs, praising Hitler and making jokes about slavery and rape, some GOP leaders are sounding the alarm and calling for their fellow party members to resign. —Emily Chang, ABC News, 15 Oct. 2025

At age 13, Taylor Cadle was charged with lying to law enforcement about the rapes at the insistence of Polk County sheriff’s Detective Melissa Turnage, who was assigned to investigate Cadle’s case, her lawsuit filed Friday says. —Miami Herald, Boston Herald, 15 Oct. 2025

Verb

Benjamin covered the woman’s head with a jacket and raped her, according to prosecutors. —Julia Marnin, Miami Herald, 19 Oct. 2025

In December 1978, Gacy confessed to kidnapping, raping and murdering dozens of boys and men, some as young as 14 years old, and hiding many of their bodies in a crawl space under the house. —Jessica Sager, PEOPLE, 18 Oct. 2025

Rather, Mailer’s recordings of them felt like an extreme but iconic depiction of 1970s countercultural underclass Americana, where teenage girls are drugged and gang-raped without registering much on the surface at all. —Literary Hub, 16 Oct. 2025

Anthony Wiggins, 29, was charged in Alameda County with raping a woman in Dublin in May 2024. —Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 16 Oct. 2025

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court denied an application for stay of execution for Crawford, a Mississippi man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing college student Kristy Ray in 1993. —Mandy Taheri, MSNBC Newsweek, 16 Oct. 2025

She had been raped and strangled. —Tim Stelloh, NBC news, 15 Oct. 2025

Yes, the basic scenario about a spaceman getting raped, returning to his ship, and giving unholy birth to a monster that hunts down his crewmates came from the original writing team. —Chris Klimek, Vulture, 26 Sep. 2025

Like Estes, both women say they were raped by a KU football player — not the same one from Estes’ case — in his on-campus housing only weeks into their freshman year at KU. —Kansas City Star, 24 Sep. 2025

Word History

Etymology

Noun (1)

Middle English, "violent seizure, abduction of a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her," borrowed from Anglo-French rap, rape, probably borrowed from Medieval Latin rapum, noun derivative of rapiō, rapere "to seize and carry off, abduct a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her" — more at rape entry 2

Note: Use of this word in its most predominant modern meaning is attested early in legal Anglo-French and British Medieval Latin, though the precise derivational pathways are uncertain. The Latin word may have been based on the Anglo-French word, but both must ultimately be dependent on the classical Latin verb. Note that rapum exists alongside classical Latin raptus, the regularly derived u-stem verbal noun, used in British Medieval Latin in the sense "rape." Compare ravish.

Verb

Middle English rapen "to abduct a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her," borrowed from Anglo-French raper, borrowed from Medieval Latin rapiō, rapere "to seize and carry off, abduct a woman with of the intent of sexually assaulting her," going back to Latin, "to seize and carry off, take away by force, carry off a woman with the intent of sexually assaulting her, carry or sweep along, impel forcibly (to a course of conduct), snatch up, gather quickly" — more at rapid entry 1

Note: The verb rapen in its predominant modern sense is rare in Middle English, the more common verb meaning "to rape" being ravisshen "to ravish." The Middle English Dictionary lists rapen with a meaning "to carry off, transport (the soul to heaven)," but all forms cited are for a past participle rapt, rapte, which appears to have been borrowed directly from Medieval Latin raptus, past participle of rapere in this sense (see rapt). See also the note at rape entry 1.

Noun (2)

Middle English, "turnip, Brassica napus," borrowed from Latin rāpa, rāpum "turnip"; akin to Germanic *rōbjōn- "turnip" (whence Middle Dutch & Middle Low German rove, Old High German ruoba, ruoppa), Lithuanian rópė, Greek rháphys, rhápys (all going back to an earlier *rāp(h)-), Church Slavic (eastern) rěpa, Polish rzepa (going back to *rēp-), Welsh erfin "turnips, rape," Breton irvin (going back to *arb-īno-, perhaps metathesized from *rab-), all from a substratal pre-Indo-European word of uncertain form

Note: The Greek forms with fluctuating aspiration, as well as the derivative rháphanos "any of various cultivars of Brassica oleracea, radish," with the suffix -anos, argue for membership in the same pre-Greek substratum as a number of other Greek words; whether the other European forms are borrowed from this etymon or are part of a more general substratum is unclear (see Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2010, p. 1277). Not related to Old Norse rófa "tail" (see Guus Kroonen, Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Brill, 2013, p. 415).

Noun (3)

French râpe grape stalk

First Known Use

Noun (1)

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3

Verb

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2b

Noun (2)

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Noun (3)

1657, in the meaning defined above

Phrases Containing rape

• acquaintance rape
• anti-rape
• date rape
• date rape drug
• gang rape
• oilseed rape
• statutory rape

Rhymes for rape

• ape
• cape
• crape
• crepe
• drape
• gape
• grape
• pape
• scape
• scrape
• shape
• snape

Kids Definition

rape

1 of 3 noun

ˈrāp 

: an herb related to the mustards that is grown for animals to graze on and for its seeds which are used as birdseed and as a source of oil

compare canola

rape

2 of 3 verb

raped; raping

1

archaic : to take away by force

2

: to have sexual relations with by force

raper noun

rapist

ˈrā-pəst 

noun

rape

3 of 3 noun

: an act or instance of raping

Etymology

Noun

Middle English rape "the herb rape," from Latin rapa, rapum "turnip, rape"

Verb

Middle English rapen "to take away by force," from Latin rapere "to seize"

Medical Definition

rape

1 of 3 noun

ˈrāp 

: a European herb (Brassica napus) of the mustard family grown as a forage crop and for its seeds which yield rapeseed oil and are a bird food see canola sense 1

rape

2 of 3 transitive verb

raped; raping

: to commit rape on

rape

3 of 3 noun

: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent compare sexual assault, statutory rape

Legal Definition

rape

1 of 2 transitive verb

raped; raping

: to commit rape on

raper noun

rapist noun

rape

2 of 2 noun

: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception see also statutory rape

Note: The common-law crime of rape involved a man having carnal knowledge of a woman not his wife through force and against her will, and required at least slight penetration of the penis into the vagina. While some states maintain essentially this definition of rape, most have broadened its scope especially in terms of the sex of the persons and the nature of the acts involved. Marital status is usually irrelevant. Moreover, the crime is codified under various names, including first degree sexual assault, sexual battery, unlawful sexual intercourse, and first degree sexual abuse.

Etymology

Transitive verb

Latin rapere to seize and take away by force