raven
verb · noun · adjective
Simple meaning
To devour with great eagerness.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rayvuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹeɪvən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
(transitive, intransitive, sometimes with "up", "down", "in", etc) To devour with great eagerness; to feed (on something) hungrily or greedily.
transitiveintransitive with "on"
To prey on with rapacity; to attack with violence in order to, or as if to, devour.
(transitive; sometimes intransitive with "from", "away", etc; archaic) To obtain or seize by violence; to plunder.
intransitive
To show rapacity; to be greedy (for something).
noun
A jet-black color.
Rapine; rapacity.
Prey; plunder; food obtained by violence.
A community in Red Deer County, Alberta, Canada, possibly named after the Raven River.
countable
Any of several, generally large and lustrous black species of birds in the genus Corvus, especially the common raven (Corvus corax).
A number of places in the United States
adjective
Of the color of the raven; jet-black.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (transitive, intransitive, sometimes with "up", "down", "in", etc) To devour with great eagerness; to feed (on something) hungrily or greedily.
Used this way, raven is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly warm, approving pull. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Positive
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Warm and admiring
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
Raven is emotionally heavy: it suggests deep or lasting feeling, not a passing mood, so it can overstate a small reaction.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use raven
- “A large black raven landed on the tree branch and looked around.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Nocturnal or crepuscular herons.
Large sculpin of western Atlantic.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.