2011_09_22 rapine \RAP-in\, noun: to seize and carry off

Word of the Day for Thursday, September 22, 2011
rapine \RAP-in\, noun:
The act of plundering; the seizing and carrying away of another's property by force.
He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking what is not his.
-- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (translated by N.H. Thomson)
Extortion and rapine are poor providers.
-- Olaudah Equiano, Unchained Voices: an anthology of Black authors in the English-Speaking World of the 18th Century
The war, proclaimed William Lloyd Garrison, was one "of aggression, of invasion, of conquest, and rapine - marked by ruffianism, perfidy, and every other feature of national depravity."
-- Robert W. Johannsen, "America's Forgotten War (Mexican War, 1846-1848)", The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1996
Rapine derives from Latin rapina, from rapere, "to seize and carry off, to snatch or hurry away," which also gives us rapid.