Chapter Ransom to Rappel of R by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

2. To hasten. [Obs.] Piers Plowman.

3. To seize and bear away, as the mind or thoughts; to transport out of one's self; to affect with ecstasy or rapture; as, rapt into admiration.

I 'm rapt with joy to see my Marcia's tears.

Addison.

Rapt into future times, the bard begun.

Pope.

4. To exchange; to truck. [Obs. & Low]

To rap and ren, To rap and rend. [Perhaps fr. Icel. hrapa to hurry and ræna plunder, fr. ran plunder, E. ran.] To seize and plunder; to snatch by violence. Dryden. "[Ye] waste all that ye may rape and renne." Chaucer.

All they could rap and rend and pilfer.

Hudibras.

—

To rap out, to utter with sudden violence, as an oath.

A judge who rapped out a great oath.

Addison.

Rap
(Rap), n. [Perhaps contr. fr. raparee.] A popular name for any of the tokens that passed current for a half-penny in Ireland in the early part of the eighteenth century; any coin of trifling value.

Many counterfeits passed about under the name of raps.

Swift.

Tie it [her money] up so tight that you can't touch a rap, save with her consent.

Mrs. Alexander.

Not to care a rap, to care nothing. — Not worth a rap, worth nothing.

Rapaces
(||Ra*pa"ces) n. pl. [NL. See Rapacious.] (Zoöl.) Same as Accipitres.

Rapacious
(Ra*pa"cious) a. [L. rapax, -acis, from rapere to seize and carry off, to snatch away. See Rapid.]

1. Given to plunder; disposed or accustomed to seize by violence; seizing by force. " The downfall of the rapacious and licentious Knights Templar." Motley.

2. Accustomed to seize food; subsisting on prey, or animals seized by violence; as, a tiger is a rapacious animal; a rapacious bird.

3. Avaricious; grasping; extortionate; also, greedy; ravenous; voracious; as, rapacious usurers; a rapacious appetite.

[Thy Lord] redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious claim

Milton.

Syn. — Greedy; grasping; ravenous; voracious.

— Ra*pa"cious*ly, adv. — Ra*pa"cious*ness, n.

Rapacity
(Ra*pac"i*ty) n. [L. rapacitas: cf. F. rapacité. See Rapacious.]

1. The quality of being rapacious; rapaciousness; ravenousness; as, the rapacity of pirates; the rapacity of wolves.

2. The act or practice of extorting or exacting by oppressive injustice; exorbitant greediness of gain. "The rapacity of some ages." Sprat.