ravage

1. 1.

   (usually plural) a destructive action

   “the ravages of time”

   “the depredations of age and disease”

   Synonymsdepredation

   Broaderdestruction

   plural

Other forms of ravage

plural

ravages·

past tense

ravaged·

present participle

ravaging·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about ravage

What does ravage mean?

ravage means "make a pillaging or destructive raid on (a place), as in wartimes". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in ravage?

ravage has 2 syllables: rav-age. The stress falls on "rav". In IPA it is /ˈɹævɪdʒ/.

What is another word for ravage?

Close synonyms include harry, lay waste to, waste, devastate, desolate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ravage a common word?

ravage is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.