RAPACITY • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Rapacity

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noun

Rapacity n.

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

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

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Etymology of 'Rapacity'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Rapacity" Quotes from Famous Books

... reputation for beastliness. My surmises never ventured to the hazardous period of infancy, or risked the doubtful thought that kith or kin could have loved him; but I have often wondered if there ever was a time when his rapacity found employment in the robbing of a hen's nest, or his grasping ambition culminated in the swop of a jack-knife. I wondered if in all the grotesque concomitants that congregated to make up the hideous whole, there existed a redeeming trait. Yes, there was ...

— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong

... a hundred and thirty years have passed since the victims of Cunningham's cruelty and rapacity were starved to death in churches consecrated to the praise and worship of a God of love. It is a tardy recognition that we are giving them, and one that is most imperfect, yet it is all that we can now do. The ditches where they were interred have long ago been filled ...

— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... contracts through the courts; the introduction of cash coinage as the basis of all transactions; and the grant of proprietary and transferable rights in land, appear to have at the same time enhanced the Bania's prosperity and increased the harshness and rapacity of his dealings. When the moneylender lived in the village he had an interest in the solvency of the tenants who constituted his clientele and was also amenable to public opinion, even though not of his own caste. For it would clearly be an impossibly unpleasant position for ...

— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... the rapids. With these precautions they all passed unmolested. The only accident that happened was the upsetting of one of the canoes, by which some of the goods sunk, and others floated down the stream. The alertness and rapacity of the hordes which infest these rapids, were immediately apparent. They pounced upon the floating merchandise with the keenness of regular wreckers. A bale of goods which landed upon one of the islands was immediately ripped open, one half of its contents divided among the captors, ...

— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... them quite easy to walk upon. They presently quiet down, and the brigand begins to notice her surroundings. The antennae point forward, seeking information; the hinder legs are drawn up with a slight trembling, as of greed and rapacity, in the thighs; the head turns to the right and the left, and follows the evolutions of the bees against the glass. The posture of the scoundrelly insect is strikingly expressive; one reads in it the brutal desires of a creature in ambush, the cunning patience that postpones attack. ...

— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

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